ENGLISH    LITERATURE 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK   •   BOSTON  •    CHICAGO   •    DALU^S 
ATLANTA  •  SAN   FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Limited 

LONDON  •  BOMBAY  •  CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


William  Shakespeare 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE 


BY 


THOMAS    E.   RANKIN 

PROFESSOR   OF   RHETORIC    IN   THE   UNIVERSITY 
OF   MICHIGAN 

AND 

WILFORD    M.   AIKIN 

ASSISTANT   PROFESSOR   OF   EDUCATION   IN 
OHIO   STATE   UNIVERSITY 


THE    MACMILLAN   COMPANY 
1917 

Ail  rights  reserved 


Copyright,  1917, 
Bv  THE  MACMILLAN   COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  January,  1917. 


NottBooD  i^rrM 

J.  8.  CuHlilnp  Co.  —  BorwJck  A  Smith  Oo. 

Norwood,  MttHs.,  U.S.A. 


PREFACE 

The  chief  value  in  the  discussion  of  literature  is  gained  when 
the  student  is  led  to  read  the  literature  under  discussion.  Then, 
the  value  of  reading  the  literature  consists  chiefly  in  two  things : 
that  it  affords  relief,  and  that  it  stimulates,  —  relief  from  the 
"  care  and  wearisome  turmoil "  of  the  workaday  world,  and 
stimulus  to  the  life  of  activity  in  the  work  of  the  world.  If  the 
reading  of  literature  furnishes  a  stimulus  to  that  disciplined 
form  of  living  which  we  call  "  writing  "  or  authorship,  so  much 
the  more  is  gained  than  is  commonly  the  case.  In  this  book 
the  authors  have  placed  considerable  emphasis  upon  the  types 
of  literature,  largely  because  it  is  a  type  or  "  kind  "  of  literature 
that  the  student  always  thinks  of  himself  as  reading,  and  because 
his  writing,  much  or  little,  will  always  consciously  be  of  one  of 
these  types.  The  types  are  emphasized  also  because  the  his- 
torical movements  in  literature  have  always  stressed  more  or 
less  the  use  of  certain  types  at  given  times.  Hence,  both  use 
and  the  logic  of  history  suggest  the  value  of  frequent  attention 
to  the  kind  of  production  which  is  uppermost  at  a  given  time  or 
with  a  given  author.  Of  course,  it  is  hoped  that  the  study  of 
this  book  will  directly  aid  the  student  in  passing  useful  judg- 
ments upon  what  he  reads,  in  novel,  drama,  favorite  magazine, 
or  whatever  at  any  moment  is  in  hand.  It  still  remains  true 
that  it  is  not  of  so  much  importance  that  a  reader  shall  be 
pleased  with  what  he  peruses  as  that  he  shall  be  "  right "  in 
being  pleased. 

54  ^:?92 


VI  PREFACE 

Many  autobiographic  details  which  might  be  of  passing  inter- 
est in  connection  with  authors  have  been  omitted  from  this  book. 
The  main  attempt  has  been  to  find  the  spirit  of  the  true  and 
beautiful  and  useful  within  the  author  as  it  has  found  expression 
in  what  he  has  written.  ''  The  artist  is  what  he  does,"  and  com- 
paratively few  artists  in  authorship  have  done  much  of  special 
worth  excepting  to  write  books.  Shakespeare,  Keats,  Tenny- 
son, Browning,  are  indeed  noted  writers,  but  the  facts  of  their 
lives  other  than  the  fact  of  writing  are  most  insignificant.  How- 
ever, we  have  attempted  everywhere  to  make  clear  the  influences 
which  have  made  the  makers  of  literature  in  English-speaking 
countries  what  they  have  been. 

Acknowledgment  of  much  indebtedness  is  due  to  many  who 
have  been  and  are  our  teachers,  colleagues,  and  students. 

T.  E.  R. 
W.  M.  A. 

November  15,  1916. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER   I 

PAGES 

Introduction 1-22 

Historical  Periods  and  the  Types  of  Literature,  1 ;  Table 
of  Authors,  10. 

CHAPTER   II 

Anglo-Saxon  and  Middle-English  Literature,  600-1154  .        23-47 
Anglo-Saxon,  23  ;  Middle-English,  30. 

CHAPTER   III 

Renaissance  Literature,  1500-1613 48-108 

The  Revival  of  Learning,  48 ;  Edmund  Spenser,  60 ;  The 
Drama  to  Shakespeare,  66 ;  WiUiam  Shakespeare,  78. 

CHAPTER  IV 

The  Literature  of  the  Seventeenth  Century,  1613-1700    109-137 
Introduction,  109;    To  Milton,  110;    John  Milton,  114; 
John  Dryden,  123 ;    Later  Contemporaries  of  Milton  and 
Dryden,  130. 

CHAPTER   V 

The  Eighteenth  Century,  1700-1798 138-186 

Its  General  Character,  138 ;  The  Poets,  140  ;  The  Essay- 
ists, 162  ;  The  Novelists,  168 ;  Philosophers  and  Historians, 
181. 


VIU  CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  VI 

PAGES 

The  Early  Nineteenth  Century,  1798-1837        .        .        .    187-251 
General   Characteristics,    187;    The   Greater   Poets   and 
Novelists,  188 ;  The  Lesser  Writers  of  the  Period,  232. 


CHAPTER,  VII 

The  Victorian  Era,  1837-1890 252-335 

General  Characteristics,  252  ;  History,  253 ;  Prose  Fiction, 
257 ;  Criticism,  278  ;  Science,  295  ;  Poetry,  296. 

CHAPTER  VIII 

The  Present  Day,  1890- 336-352 

Introduction,  336;  The  Novel,  337;  The  Short-Story, 
340 ;  The  Drama,  342  ;  Poetry,  346. 

CHAPTER   IX 

The  Chief  Types  of  Literature 353-408 

Introduction,  353 ;  Study  of  the  Epic,  354 ;  Study  of  the 
Drama,  359 ;  Study  of  the  Essay,  366 ;  Study  of  the  Novel, 
370;  Study  of  the  Lyric,  379  ;  Study  of  the  Short-Story,  386; 
Criticism,  394;  Letters,  398;  Topics  for  Advanced  Study, 
404. 


ENGLISH   LITERATURE 


ENGLISH    LITERATURE 

CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTION 

Historical  Periods,  and  the  Types  of  Literature 

Length  and  continuity  of  the  literature.  —  Among  the  litera- 
tures of  all  peoples  no  other  has  had  such  a  continuous  history, 
unbroken  by  long  periods  of  lack  of  production,  nor  has  any 
other  had  such  a  great  history,  as  the  literature  of  the  English- 
speaking  peoples.  Literature  has  been  produced  in  the  English 
language  and  its  Teutonic  ancestor,  the  old  German  language, 
for  considerably  more  than  twelve  hundred  years.  It  began 
with  the  old  Teutonic  poems  which  celebrate  the  deeds  of  the 
near  relatives  of  the  Germans,  who,  clad  in  blowzy  upper 
garments,  narrow  trousers,  and  conical-shaped  wolfskin  caps, 
marched  into  Rome  in  the  train  of  the  imperial  conquerors  to 
the  delight  of  the  mobs  of  the  Eternal  City.  Those  near  rela- 
tives were  Beowulf  and  the  heroes  of  the  poem  which  bears  his 
name.  If,  as  is  supposed,  Beowulf  belonged  to  the  court  of 
Hygelac,  who  reigned  as  a  king  about  515  a.d.,  and  if  the  writer 
of  the  poem  lived  near  the  time  of  the  hero,  then  the  literature 
in  our  tongue  began  about  fourteen  hundred  years  ago.  But 
it  is  not  likely  that  Beowulf  was  so  great  a  hero  to  those  with 
whom  he  lived  as  to  the  man  who  wrote  of  his  deeds,  and  hence 
we  think  that  a  century  or  two  must  have  passed  by  before 
the  epic  story  began  to  be  told  in  writing. 


4  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

There  have  been  very  few  centuries,  or  even  decades,  since  the 
seventh  century,  in  which  some  writings  of  importance  were  not 
produced  in  our  tongue ;  and  as  man  is  much  the  same  yesterday, 
to-day,  and  forever,  the  qualities  of  EngUsh  literature  have 
always  been  much  alike.  English-speaking  men  have  always 
been  writing  men,  and  from  the  very  earliest  writers  down 
to  Mark  Twain  and  W.  B.  Yeats  and  Kipling  they  have 
always  been  fiUed  with  the  inspiration  of  thought  and  feeling 
which  in  attractive  and  interesting  ways  has  made  their 
writings  literature. 

Geographical  distribution  of  English  writers.  —  It  is  the 
custom  in  studying  English  literature  to  give  attention  exclu- 
sively to  the  writers  who  have  lived  in  the  British  Isles.  But  it 
is  logical  to  extend  the  list  to  include  the  writers  who  have  lived 
in  America,  Australia,  India,  South  Africa,  and  the  islands  of 
the  South  Seas,  using  the  term  "  British  literature  "  to  describe 
only  that  which  was  produced  by  men  living  in  the  islands  of  the 
United  Kingdom.  Therefore,  in  the  study  which  will  be  made 
in  this  book,  at  least  passing  mention  will  be  given  to  other 
important  writers  in  the  English  language  than  those  who 
have  chanced  to  do  their  work  within  a  few  hundred  miles 
of  London. 

Names  and  dates  of  the  periods  in  the  history  of  English  Lit- 
erature. —  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson  once  said  that  the  chief  glory 
of  a  people  arises  from  its  authors.  The  life  of  a  race  shows 
itself  most  clearly  in  the  feeling  and  thought  and  imagination 
which  its  writers  put  into  books.  Racial  life  passes  through 
stages  of  civiHzation  and  culture,  and  the  authors  of  its  books 
take  pictures,  as  it  were,  of  that  life  as  they  see  it.  Now,  if  we 
take  England  as  the  center  of  the  life  of  the  people  who  speak 
English,  it  is  possible  to  divide  the  literary  picturing  of  their 
civilization  and  culture  into  the  following  periods : 


INTRODUCTION  3 

The  Anglo-Saxon 600-1154  a.d. 

The  Middle-English 11 54-1 500 

The  Renaissance 1500-1613 

The  Seventeenth  Century 1613-1700 

The  Eighteenth  Century        1 700-1 798 

The  Early  Nineteenth  Century       ....  1 798-1837 

The  Victorian  Age 1837-1890 

The  Present-day 1890- 

Flexibility  of  the  dates.  —  Since  literature  is  the  ''  well- 
languaged  "  record  of  the  intellectual  and  emotional  life  of 
groups  of  men,  and  since  no  one  large  group  of  men  ever  passes 
out  of  existence  at  once,  therefore  the  dates  dividing  these 
periods  cannot  be  considered  as  positively  fixed.  A  book  may 
also  be  written  in  one  age,  and  yet  reflect  the  spirit  of  an 
earlier  age.  In  fact,  rarely  does  a  book  ever  appeal  to  a  great 
number  of  readers  unless  it  reflects  ideas  that  have  been  afloat 
in  the  minds  of  many  people  before  the  author  begins  to  write 
the  book,  even  though  he  may  finely  and  forcefully  reflect  those 
ideas  for  the  first  time.  Since,  also,  literature  mirrors  tendencies 
and  general  movements  of  thought  even  more  strongly  than  it 
does  minute  details  of  life,  it  is  difficult  to  make  very  accurate 
dates  to  bound  periods  in  literary  history,  and  hence  the  dates 
given  above  may  easily  be  extended  a  few  years  in  either  or  both 
directions  without  being  untrue  to  actual  facts.  The  thing  to 
be  remembered  is  that  the  tendencies  of  life  and  the  general 
movements  of  thought  are  of  more  importance  than  any  facts 
as  to  dates  of  the  births  of  authors  or  as  to  dates  of  the  publica- 
tion of  books. 

Method  of  study.  —  Without  doubt  the  ideal  way  of  studying 
the  literature  of  a  race  is  to  study  it  continuously  from  its  earli- 
est beginnings  down  to  the  student's  own  day.  But  this  is  an 
ideal  way  which  has  not  achieved  ideal  results,  because  in  order 
to  secure  ideal  results  by  this  way  of  study  so  much  knowledge 


4  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

of  the  history  of  philosophy,  of  religion,  of  politics,  of  art,  of 
science,  and  of  commerce  is  necessary,  that  few  students,  old 
or  young,  are  competent  to  interpret  correctly  the  history  of 
literature  in  its  unbroken  sequence.  It  is  wise,  then,  unless  the 
student  is  well  equipped  with  a  wide  range  of  general  knowledge, 
not  to  undertake  the  study  of  the  history  of  literature  in  full 
detail,  but  to  secure  a  general  view  of  that  history  and  to  apply 
much  of  his  energy  to  close  study  of  the  types  of  literature  as 
they  are  found  in  various  periods. 

General  contents  of  the  periods.  —  At  the  beginning  of  the 
study  of  each  of  the  historical  periods  in  this  book  there  will 
be  given  a  general  description  of  the  character  of  the  period, 
but  it  may  be  well  at  this  point  to  give  a  very  summary 
pre-view. 

In  the  Anglo-Saxon  age  little  was  written  which  is  worthy 
of  attention  excepting  the  epic  poems  and  the  heroic  songs 
upon  which  those  epic  poems  were  based.  The  Middle-English 
period  presented  to  mankind  as  its  chief  gift  Chaucer, 
golden-hearted,  most  human  poet,  whom  Edmund  Spenser 
called  the  "  well  of  English  undefiled,"  and  of  whom  Walter 
Savage  Landor  wrote  that  he  "  was  worth  a  dozen  Spensers." 
During  the  period  of  the  Renaissance  we  come  upon  the  full- 
orbed  choir  consisting  of  Shakespeare  and  his  fellow  Elizabethans, 
most  of  whom  were  sane,  clear-sighted,  and,  generally,  wholesome. 
It  was  these  Elizabethans  who,  more  than  any  other  group  of 
writers,  unlocked  for  us  the  doors  of  human  nature. in  all  its 
varying  moods.  The  Seventeenth  Century  was  a  century  of 
tumult  in  politics,  in  religion,  and  in  all  social  conditions,  and,  as 
we  might  therefore  expect,  during  that  century  there  was  a 
great  deal  of  feverish  and  extravagant  writing.  And  yet,  as 
we  should  also  have  the  right  to  expect  of  any  period  of 
human  history,  there  were  at  that  time  some  men  who  in  their 


INTRODUCTION  5 

writings  provided  a  corrective  to  all  the  extravagant  and  exag- 
gerated writing,  by  the  production  of  literature  in  the  most  care- 
fully controlled  form.  Many  of  the  most  exquisite  and  deli- 
cately made  of  all  songs  were  then  written  by  Herrick  and  his 
fellow  lyric  poets ;  and  Bacon  and  Bunyan,  Dryden  and  Milton, 
produced  a  large  number  of  the  world's  masterpieces,  covering, 
among  them,  almost  all  the  types  of  literature.  Furthermore, 
as  we  have  a  right  to  expect  of  great  thinkers  in  times  of  turmoil, 
there  came  from  the  writers  we  have  just  named  and  from  some 
others  much  of  the  best  literary  criticism  of  all  time. 

It  was  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  however,  that  critical  in- 
vestigation of  life  and  of  literature  came  to  be  a  very  prominent 
matter.  Much  of  this  critical  work  was  done  by  Jonathan  Swift 
and  Henry  Fielding,  the  giant-like  minds  of  that  century,  though 
that  which  is  best  known  is  by  lesser  men,  —  Pope  and  Addison. 
The  eighteenth  century  was  the  era  of  the  essay  and  of  the 
novel,  both  of  which  are,  above  all  things,  critical  of  life  and 
literature.  During  the  Eaely  Nineteenth  Century  period, 
lyric  poetry,  with  all  of  its  frailty  and  yet  freedom  from  the 
duller  things  of  earth,  showed  itself  in  the  most  varied  ways  in 
the  writings  of  Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  Keats,  Byron,  Shelley, 
and  many  others.  The  Victorian  Age  was  a  splendid  epoch, 
and  many  of  its  great  names  are  already  familiar  to  all  who 
begin  the  study  of  literature  from  the  historical  point  of  view. 
The  Present-day,  from  1890  on,  is  likely  to  exclude  from  our 
reading  much  that  has  been  of  great  value  in  the  past.  But  it 
is  an  age  in  which  there  are  at  work  some  very  earnest, 
thoughtful,  keen,  and  skilled  artists  both  in  verse  and  prose, 
though  the  ease  of  publication  and  the  present  great  appetite 
for  reading  make  possible  and  almost  inevitable  the  printing 
of  a  huge  number  of  unworthy  books. 

Types  of  literature,  —  their  historical  order.  —  If  we  trace 


6  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

the  types  of  literature  through  these  centuries,  we  come  upon 
them  in  about  the  following  order :  the  epic,  the  ballad  and  other 
brief  stories  in  verse,  the  drama,  criticism,  the  essay,  the  novel, 
the  lyric  poem,  the  short-story.  Many  of  these  types  are 
contemporaneous  with  each  other;  and  in  the  present  day 
all  the  types,  with  the  exception  of  the  epic  such  as  was 
written  by  Milton  and  by  Spenser,  are  being  produced  in 
profusion.  Besides  these  types  of  written  discourse,  uni- 
versally called  "  literary  "  because  they  are  written  in  a  man- 
ner most  readily  understood  by  the  greatest  number  and  the 
most  varied  kinds  of  people  who  read,,  there  are  the  works 
of  many  noted  historians,  the  speeches  of  great  orators,  the 
treatises  of  learned  philosophers,  and  the  daily  journals. 
Many  of  these  are  written  in  the  literary  manner ;  among 
them  the  works  of  Macaulay  and  John  Richard  Green  in 
history,  of  Burke  and  Webster  in  oratory,  of  Hume  and 
Thomas  Henry  Huxley  in  philosophy  and  science.  These 
works  are  as  much  a  part  of  the  history  of  English  literature  as 
are  the  novels  of  Thackeray  or  the, poems  of  Tennyson. 

General  character  of  the  types.  —  All  the  activities  of  human 
life  which  we  daily  see  are  signs  of  the  inner  impulses  and  desires 
and  plans  of  man's  spirit.  Also  each  product  of  man's  writing 
is  a  symbolic  illustration  or  sign  of  an  intellectual  or  an  emo- 
tional condition,  or  of  both.  The  types  of  literature  do  not  dif- 
fer so  much  in  the  nature  of  their  subject  matter,  except  in  the 
amount  of  subject  matter  included  within  them,  as  they  differ 
in  their  ways  of  presenting  their  subject  matter.  Each  type  of 
literature  differs  from  every  other  in  its  point  of  view  and  in 
its  plan  or  structure.  While  no  serious  person  has  ever  been  sure 
that  he  can  make  a  perfect  definition  of  any  of  them,  yet  it  will 
be  well  to  try  to  have  a  fairly  definite  idea  of  what  each  is  before 
one  comes  into  touch  with  them  in  their  manifold  kinds  and  uses. 


INTRODUCTION  7 

Definitions.  —  The  Epic  consists  of  a  series  of  stories, 
most  of  them  centering  about  one  important  character,  or, 
we  may  say,  strung  like  pearls  upon  the  strand  of  some  great 
heroic  personality,  who  represents  in  his  history  the  ideals  of 
the  age  which  tells  the  stories  about  him.  It  is  generally  a 
long  poem.  Often  any  narrative  poem,  long  or  short,  is  called 
an  epic,  simply  because  it  tells  a  story. 

The  Ballad  is  a  brief  story  in  verse,  quite  musical  in  its  move- 
ment, sometimes  epic  because  it  tells  a  story  representative  of 
an  age  and  a  people,  and  sometimes  lyric  because  it  is  suffused 
with  personal  emotion. 

The  Drama  represents  a  crisis  in  the  life  of  an  individual  or 
of  a  group  of  individuals,  and,  by  means  of  dialogue,  develops 
that  important  crisis  through  a  series  of  minor  crises  to  its  logi- 
cal conclusion.  The  drama  is  considered  by  many  to  be  the 
most  important  of  all  the  forms  of  literature.  It  is  not  so 
difficult  to  plan  as  a  great  novel  is,  but  it  represents  the  most 
profound  and  the  most  subtle  work  of  all  the  types,  and  the 
greatest  minds  have  given  their  energies  to  writing  it. 

Criticism  generally  takes  the  form  of  more  or  less  brief  essays, 
most  often  in  prose,  which  attempt  to  explain  and  determine 
the  worth  of  the  various  ways  in  which  man  has  tried  to  express 
his  ideas  and  impressions  of  life.  Unless  the  term  is  qualified 
in  some  way,  "  criticism  "  is  nearly  always  applied  to  the  inter- 
pretation of  literature. 

The  Essay  was  defined  by  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson  as  a  ''  loose 
sally  of  the  mind."  But  looseness  in  thought,  and  therefore  in 
structure,  does  not  characterize  essays  of  the  best  quaUty. 
Francis  Bacon  thought  of  the  essay  as  we  think  of  an  assay 
made  in  the  office  of  an  expert  in  ores.  Perhaps  a  combination 
of  the  idea  of  Dr.  Johnson  with  that  of  Bacon  would  with  rea- 
sonable accuracy  describe  the  essay.     The  essay  always  at- 


8  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

tempts  to  make  clear,  or  enforce,  or  develop,  an  idea,  or  the  plan 
thought  to  be  latent  in  some  historical  or  contemporary  experi- 
ence. Its  method  may  be  that  of  story,  of  description,  of  expo- 
sition, or  the  technical  method  of  argumentation. 

The  Novel  is  the  most  ambitious  of  all  the  kinds  of  litera- 
ture. It  endeavors  to  represent  clearly  and  forcefully  a  view 
of  the  complex  social  relations  of  men.  It  usually  deals  with 
individual  characters  and  situations  upon  the  background  of 
the  life  of  a  community  or  of  a  nation.  The  more  individual  its 
material,  the  more  likely  the  novel  is  to  be  woven  into  the  form 
of  a  plot ;  while  the  more  national,  or  epic,  the  material,  the 
more  rambling  is  likely  to  be  the  structure  of  the  story. 

The  Lyric  poem  is  brief,  highly  musical,  sometimes  simple, 
sometimes  richly  complex  in  its  musical  harmonies.  It  is  often 
as  simple  in  the  movement  of  its  story  as  the  ballad,  yet  often 
complex  to  the  highest  degree.  It  usually  reflects  the  passion 
of  the  mind  or  of  the  heart  of  an  individual. 

The  Short-story  is  not  so  modern  as  it  is  frequently  said  to  be ; 
but  it  was  consciously  brought  almost  to  a  state  of  perfection 
not  earlier  than  the  nineteenth  century.  It  differs  from  the 
novel  in  its  brevity,  and,  usually,  in  the  finely  wrought  crafts- 
manship of  its  plot,  but  even  more  in  the  limited  nature  of  its 
subject  matter.  It  is  only  in  its  background  that  the  short- 
story  can  be  said  to  be  national,  or  epic,  for  it  is  too  restricted 
in  scope  to  deal  with  more  than  a  very  few  incidents  and  a 
very  few  characters.  Generally  there  is  but  one  important 
and  dominant  incident  related  in  the  life  of  not  more  than  one 
or  two  important  characters.  Change  in  the  inner  character 
of  the  persons  written  of  in  the  short-story  may  be  depicted, 
but  there  is  hardly  room  enough  for  the  portrayal  of  develop- 
ment of  character  such  as  is  found  in  the  novel  and  in  the 
drama.    The  situation  in  the  short-story  is  usually  dramatic. 


INTRODUCTION  9 

History  is  the  relation  of  events.  It  must  be  understood  that 
"  relating  "  means  more  than  mere  telling ;  it  means  showing 
the  relationships  of,  or  interpreting,  as  well  as  telling.  An  Ora- 
tion is  a  spoken  discourse ;  there  is  nearly  always  associated  with 
it  the  purpose  of  moving  hearers  to  action,  either  at  once  or  in 
the  future.  Philosophy  is  the  attempt  to  discover  and  explain, 
by  harmonizing  them,  the  principles  underlying  the  sciences. 
Science  is  the  search  for  knowledge  and  the  ordering  of  knowl- 
edge when  found,  usually  with  the  end  in  view  of  making  that 
knowledge  of  use  to  man.  The  daily  journal,  or  the  newspaper, 
is  a  record  of  current  events  and  an  attempt  to  interpret  their 
meaning. 

And  now,  with  a  broad  general  view  of  the  periods  of  English 
literature  in  mind,  and  some  idea  of  the  meaning  and  importance 
of  each  of  the  types  of  literature,  we  are  ready  to  study  the  de- 
tails of  the  relations  of  periods  and  types  to  each  other.  The 
following  list  of  authors,  grouped  under  the  various  periods, 
with  a  masterpiece  named  after  each  author,  will  be  found  con- 
venient to  refer  to  from  time  to  time.  The  heavier  type  indi- 
cates the  more  important  authors  in  the  period.  , 


TABLE  OF  AUTHORS 


By  Periods 


I 


Anglo-Saxon  and  Middle-English 


Anglo-Saxon 

Born 

Died 

Masterpiece 

849 

JElfred 

901 

The  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle 

1000  (?) 

^Ifric 

Lives  of  the  Saints 

735 

Alcuin 

804 

Revision  of  "  The  Vulgate  " 

550  (?) 

Author  of  Beowulf 

Beowulf 

5SO  (?) 

Author  of  Widsith 

Widsith 

673 

Bseda 

735 

Ecclesiastical  History 

650  (?) 

Caedmon 

Paraphrase  of  "  Exodus  " 

720  (?) 

Cynewulf 

Crist 

Middle- English 

1340  (?) 

Author  of  Gawain 

Sir  Gawain  and  the  Green 

• 

Knight 

1340  (?) 

Author  of  Pearl 

Pearl 

1316  (?) 

Barbour,  John 

1395 

The  Bruce 

1422  (?) 

Caxton,  William 

1491  (?) 

Transl.  of  "The  Golden 
Legend  " 

1340  (?) 

Chaucer,  Geoffrey 

1400 

Canterbury  Tales 

ino(?) 

Geoffrey  of  Monmouth 

1154 

History  of  the  Kings  of 
Britain 

132s  (?) 

Gower,  John 

1408 

Confessio  Amantis 

1394 

James  I  of  Scotland 

1437 

The  King's  Quair 

1330  (?) 

Langland,  William 

1400 

Piers  Plowman 

ii6s(?) 

Layamon 

Brut 

1370 

Lydgate,  John 

1451  (?) 

Falles  of  Princes 

1430  (?) 

Malory,  Sir  Thomas 

Morte  d'Arthur 

ii6o(?) 

Orm 

Ormulum 

TABLE  OF  AUTHORS 


11 


Born 

Died 

Masterpiece 

1350  (?) 

Purvey,  John 

Revision  of  Wycliffe's  Bible 

1325  (?) 

Translator   of   Maunde- 

Transl.  of  '*  Sir  John  Maun- 

viUe 

deville  " 

II20(?) 

Wace 

ii84(?) 

Geste  de  Bretons 

1320  (?) 

Wycliffe,  John 

1384 

Translation  of  The  Bible 

II 

The  Renaissance 

1515 

Ascham,  Roger 

1568 

Toxophilus,  or  The  School 
of  Shooting 

1561 

Bacon,  Sir  Francis 

1626 

Essays 

1495 

Bale,  John 

1563 

King  Johan 

1584 

Beaumont,  Francis 

1616 

The  Maid's  Tragedy 

1559  (?) 

Chapman,  George 

1634 

Transl.  of  "  Homer  " 

1514 

Cheke,  Sir  John 

1557 

Transls.  from  Greek  and 
Latin 

1467  (?) 

Colet,  John 

1519 

Lectures 

1488 

Coverdale,  Miles 

1568 

Transl.  of  The  Bible 

1585 

Drummond,     of     Haw- 
thornden 

1649 

Forth  Feasting 

1592 

Fairfax,  Edward 

1635 

Transl.  of  Tasso's  "Jeru- 
salem " 

1579 

Fletcher,  John 

1625 

The  Two  Noble  Kinsmen 

1553  (?) 

Florio,  John 

1625 

Transl.  of  Montaigne's 
"  Essays  " 

1560  (?) 

Greene,  Robert 

1592 

Friar  Bacon  and  Friar 
Bungay 

ISS4 

Greville,     Fulke     (Lord 
Brooke) 

1628 

On  Human  Learning 

1500  (?) 

Hall,  Edward 

1547 

Hall's  Chronicle 

1561 

Harrington,  Sir  John 

1612 

Transl.  of  Ariosto's  "  Or- 
lando Furioso  " 

1497  (?) 

Heywood,  John 

1580  (?) 

The  Four  PP 

1530  (?) 

Holinshed,  Raphael 

1580  (?) 

Chronicles 

1554  (?) 

Hooker,  Richard 

1600 

The  Laws  of  Ecclesiastical 
Polity 

12 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE 


Born 

Died 

Masterpiece 

1516  (?) 

Howard,  Henry  (Earl  of 

Surrey) 

1547 

Soimets 

1573  (?) 

Jonson,  Ben 

1637 

VolponetheFox, 

1557  (?) 

Kyd,  Thomas 

1595  (?) 

Spanish  Tragedy 

1558  (?) 

Lodge,  Thomas 

1625 

Rosalynd :  A  Novel. 

1554  (?) 

Lyly,  John 

1606 

Euphues 

1564 

Marlowe,  Christopher 

1593 

Doctor  Faustus 

1478 

More,  Sir  Thomas 

1535 

Utopia 

1567 

Nash,  Thomas 

1601 

Will  Summer's  Testament 

1535  (?) 

North,  Sir  Thomas 

1601  (?) 

Translation  of  Plutarch's 
"  Lives  " 

1532 

Norton,  Thomas 

1584 

Gorboduc 

1540  (?) 

Painter,  William 

1594 

The  Palace  of  Pleasure 

1558  (?) 

Peele,  George 

1597  (?) 

Arraignment  of  Paris 

1552 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter 

1618 

History  of  the  World 

1536 

Sackville,  Thomas  (Lord 

1608 

The     Mirror     for     Magis- 

Bockhurst) 

trates 

1564 

Shakespeare,  William 

1616 

Hamlet 

1554 

Sidney,  Sir  Philip 

1586 

Arcadia 

1552  (?) 

Spenser,  Edmtmd 

1599 

The  Faerie  Queen 

i5io(?) 

Tottel,  Richard 

Miscellany  of  Uncertain 
Authors 

1484  (?) 

Tyndale,  William 

1536 

Transl.  of  The  New  Testa- 
ment 

1505 

Udall,  Nicholas 

1556 

Ralph  Roister  Doister 

1503 

Wyatt,  Sir  Thomas  (The 
Younger) 

1542 
III 

The  Lover  Waxeth  Wiser 

The  Seventeenth  CiiNTURy 

1615 

Baxter,  Richard 

1691 

Saints'  Rest 

1605 

Browne,  Sir  Thomas 

1682 

Religio  Medici 

1590 

Browne,  William 

1643  (?) 

Britannia's  Pastorals 

1628 

Bunyan,  John 

1688 

The  Pilgrim's  Progress 

1577 

Burton,  Robert 

1640 

Anatomy  of  Melancholy 

1612 

Butler,  Samuel 

1680 

Hudibras 

1618 

1667 

Davideis 

TABLE  OF  AUTHORS 


13 


Born 

Died 

Masterpiece 

1613  (?) 

Crashaw,  Richard 

1649 

The  Flaming  Heart 

1573 

Donne,  Dr.  John 

1631 

Satires 

1637 

Dorset,     sixth    Earl    of 
(Charles  Sackville) 

1706 

Phyllis,  for  Shame 

1631 

Dryden,  John 

1700 

Alf  for  Love 

1601  (?) 

Earle,  John 

166s 

Microcosmographie 

1620 

Evelyn,  John 

1706 

Diary 

1600  (?) 

Ford,  John 

The  Broken  Heart 

1608 

Fuller,  Thomas 

1661 

Worthies  of  England 

IS74 

Hall,  Joseph 

1656 

Characters  of  Virtues  and 
Vices 

1593 

Herbert,  George 

1633 

The  Temple 

1591 

Herrick,  Robert 

1674 

The  Hesperides 

1588 

Hobbes,  Thomas 

1679 

Leviathan 

1632 

Locke,  John 

1704 

Essay  on  the  Human  Un- 
derstanding 

1621 

Marvell,  Andrew 

1678 

Satires 

1583 

Massinger,  Philip 

1640 

New  Way  to  Pay  Old  Debts 

IS70  (?) 

Middle  ton,  Thomas 

1627 

The  Changeling 

1608 

Milton,  John 

1674 

Paradise  Lost 

1642 

Newton,  Sir  Isaac 

1727 

Principia 

1652 

Otway,  Thomas 

1685 

Venice  Preserved 

1581 

Overbury,  Sir  Thomas 

1613 

Witty  Characters 

1633 

Pepys,  Samuel 

1703 

Diary 

1592 

Quarles,  Francis 

1644 

Divine  Emblems 

1647 

Rochester,  Earl  of  (John 
Wilmot) 

1680 

Lyric  Songs  and  Epigrams 

1613 

Taylor,  Jeremy 

1667 

Holy  Living  and  Dying 

1628 

Temple,  Sir  William 

1699 

Essays 

1621 

Vaughan,  Henry 

1693 

Sacred  Poems 

1605 

Waller,  Edmimd 

1687 

"  Go,  Lovely  Rose  " 

1582  (?) 

Webster,  John 

1652  (?) 

Tt  r 

The  Duchess  of  Malfi 

IV 

Eighteenth  Century 

1672 

Addison,  Joseph 

I7I9 

Roger  de  Coverley  Papers 

1735 

Beattie,  James 

1803 

The  Minstrel 

14 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE 


Born 

Died 

Masterpiece 

I7S9 

Beckford,  William 

1844 

Vathek 

i68s 

Berkeley,  Bishop 

1755 

Siris 

1699 

Blair,  Robert 

1746 

The  Grave 

I7S7 

Blake,  William 

1827 

Songs  of  Innocence 

1740 

Boswell,  James 

1795 

Life  of  Samuel  Johnson  * 

1686 

Budgell,  Eustace 

1737 

Some  "  Spectator  "  Essays 

1729 

Burke,  Edmimd 

1797 

Reflections  on  the  French 
Revolution 

1752 

Bumey,  Frances 

1840 

Evelina 

1 759 

Bums,  Robert 

1796 

The  Cotter's  Saturday 
Night 

1692 

Butler,  Bishop 

1752 

Analogy  of  Natural  and 
Revealed  Religion 

1752 

Chatterton,  Thomas 

1770 

Rowley  Poems 

1670 

Congreve,  William 

1729 

The  Way  of  the  World 

1721 

Collins,  William 

1759 

Ode  to  Evening 

1731 

Cowper,  William 

1800 

The  Task 

1661  (?) 

Defoe,  Daniel 

1731 

Robinson  Crusoe 

1678 

Farquhar,  George 

1707 

The  Recruiting  Officer 

1707 

Fielding,  Henry 

1754 

Tom  Jones 

1685 

Gay,  John 

1732 

The  Beggar's  Opera 

1737 

Gibbon,  Edward 

1794 

The  Decline  and  Fall  of  the 
Roman  Empire 

1728 

Goldsmith,  Oliver 

1774 

The  Vicar  of  Wakefield 

1716 

Gray,  Thomas 

1771 

Elegy  in  a  Country  Church- 
yard 

1677 

Hughes,  John 

1720 

On  Style 

1711 

Hume,  David 

1776 

Inquiry  Concerning  Human 
Understanding 

1709 

Johnson,  Samuel 

1784 

Rasselas 

1775 

Lewis,  Matthew  G. 

1818 

Ambrosio,  or  The  Monk 

1736 

Macpherson,  James 

1796 

Ossian 

1670  (?) 

Mandeville,  Bernard 

1733 

The  Fable  of  the  Bees 

1729 

Percy,  Bishop 

1811 

Reliques  of  Ancient  Eng- 
lish Poetry 

1688 

Pope,  Alexander 

1744 

The  Rape  of  the  Lock 

1764 

Radcliffc,  IMrs.  Ann 

1823 

The  Mysteries  of  Udolpho 

TABLE  OF  AUTHORS 


15 


Born 

Died 

Masterpiece 

1686 

Ramsay,  Allan 

1758 

The  Gentle  Shepherd 

1723 

Reynolds,  Sir  Joshua 

1792 

Discourses  on  Painting 

1689 

Richardson,  Samuel 

1761 

Pamela 

1721 

Robertson,  William 

1793 

History  of  the  Reign  of 
Charles  V 

1671 

Shaftesbury,      Anthony, 
Earl  of 

1713 

Characteristics 

1751 

Sheridan,  Richard 

1816 

The  Rivals 

1723 

Smith,  Adam 

1790 

The  Wealth  of  Nations 

1721 

Smollett,  Tobias 

1771 

Roderick  Random 

1672 

Steele,  Sir  Richard 

1729 

The  Conscious  Lovers 

1713 

Sterne,  Laurence 

1763 

Tristram  Shandy 

1667 

Swift,  Jonathan 

1745 

Gulliver's  Travels 

1700 

Thomson,  James 

1748 

The  Seasons 

1717 

Walpole,  Horace 

1797 

The  Castle  of  Otranto 

1681 

Young,  Edward 

1765 

Night  Thoughts 

American  Authors  oj 

■  the  Eighteenth  Century 

1703 

Edwards,  Jonathan 

1758 

Freedom  of  the  Will 

1706 

Franklin,  Benjamin 

1790 

Autobiography 

1757 

Hamilton,  Alexander 

1804 

Federalist  Papers 

1743 

Jefferson,  Thomas 

1826 

Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence 

1749 

Madison,  James 

1813 

Federalist  Papers 

1737 

Paine,  Thomas 

1809 

The  Rights  of  Man 

1732 

Washington,  George 

1799 

State  Papers 

V 

Early  Nineteenth  Century 

1775 

Austen,  Jane 

I817 

Pride  and  Prejudice 

1816 

Bronte,  Charlotte 

1855 

Jane  Eyre 

1788 

Byron,  George  Gordon 

1824 

Manfred 

1777 

Campbell,  Thomas 

1844 

Mariners  of  England 

1802 

Chambers,  Robert 

I87I 

Vestiges  of  Creation 

1772 

Coleridge,  Samuel  Tay- 

1834 

The   Rime  of  the  Ancient 

lor 

Mariner 

178s 

De  Quincey,  Thomas 

1859 

Joan  of  Arc 

i6 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE 


Born 

Died 

Masterpiece 

1767 

Edgeworth,  Maria 

1849 

Castle  Rackrent 

1777 

Hallam,  Henry 

1859 

Europe  during  the  Middle 
Ages 

1778 

HazUtt,  William 

1830 

English  Comic  Writers 

1793 

Hemans,  Mrs.  Felicia 

1835 

The  Forest  Sanctuary 

1799 

Hood,  Thomas 

1845 

Song  of  the  Shirt 

1784 

Hunt,  Leigh 

1845 

The  Story  of  Rimini 

1773 

Jeffrey,  Francis 

1850 

Essays  in  the  Edinburgh 
Review 

179s 

Keats,  John 

1821 

Ode  on  a  Grecian  Urn 

1775 

Lamh,  Charles 

1834 

Essays  of  Elia 

1802 

Landon,  Letitia  E. 

1838 

Romance  and  Reality 

1775 

Landor,  Walter  Savage 

1864 

Count  Julian 

1794 

Lockhart,  John  G. 

1854 

Life  of  Sir  Walter  Scott 

1797 

Lyell,  Sir  Charles 

1875 

Principles  of  Geology 

1803 

Lytton,  Bulwer 

1873 

The  Last  Days  of  Pompeii 

1792 

Marryat,   Capt.   Freder- 
rick 

1848 

Mr.  Midshipman  Easy 

1 791 

Milman,  Henry  Hart 

1868 

History  of  Latin  Christian- 
ity 
Life  of  Byron 

1779 

Moore,  Thomas 

1852 

1785 

Peacock,  Thomas  Love 

1866 

The  Misfortunes  of  Elphin 

1776 

Porter,  Jane 

1850 

Scottish  Chiefs 

1763 

Rogers,  Samuel 

1855 

Italy 

1771 

Scott,  Sir  Walter 

1832 

The  Antiquary 

1792 

Shelley,  Percy  Bysshe 

1822 

Prometheus  Unbound 

1774 

Southey,  Robert 

1843 

Life  of  Nelson 

1787 

Whately,  Richard 

1863 

Elements  of  Logic 

1785 

Wilson,  John   ("Chris- 
topher North  ") 

1854 

Noctes  Ambrosiana 

1770 

Wordsworth,  William 

1850 

Ode  on  Intimations  of  Im- 
mortality 

American  Authors  of  the  Early  Nineteenth  Century 

1 771  Brown,    Charles   Brock-    1810         Edgar  Huntley 

den 

1794         Bryant,  William  Cullen       1878         Thanatopsis 


Born 

1789 
1783 
1809 


1822 
1803 
1825 

1803 
1810 
1809 

1812 

1795 
1819 
1824 
1809 
1812 
1804 
1832 

1819 

1809 

1823 

1818 


1810 
1836 
1837 


TABLE  OF  AUTHORS 

Died  Masterpiece 


17 


Cooper,  James  Fenimore 
Irving,  Washington 
Poe,  Edgar  Allan 


1851 

1859 
1849 

VI 


The  Spy 

Rip  Van  Winkle 

Ligeia 


The  Victorian  Era 


Arnold,  Matthew  1888 

Beddoes,  Thomas  Lovell  1849 

Blackmore,  Richard  1900 

Doddridge 

Borrow,  George  1881 

Brown,  Dr.  John  1882 

Browning,  Mrs.  E.  B.  1861 

Browning,  Robert  1889 

Carlyle,  Thomas  i88i 

Clough,  Arthur  Hugh  1861 

Collins,  Wilkie  1889 

Darwin,  Charles  R.  1882 

Dickens,  Charles  1870 

Disraeli,  Benjamin  1881 

Dodgson,    Charles    Lut-  1898 

widge  (Lewis  Carroll) 

Evans,  Marian    (George  1880 

Eliot) 

Fitzgerald,  Edward  1883 

Freeman,    Edward    Au-  1892 

gustus 

Froude,  James  Anthony  1894 


Gaskell,  Mrs.  Elizabeth       1865 
Gilbert,  William  S.  191 1 

Green,  John  Richard  1883 


Essays  in  Criticism 
Dream-Pedlary 
Lorna  Doone 

The  Bible  in  Spain 

Rab  and  his  Friends 

Sonnets  from  the  Portu- 
guese 

Pippa  Passes 

The  French  Revolution 

Bothie  of  Tober-na-Vuolich 

The  Moonstone 

The  Origin  of  Species 

David  Copperiield 

Coningsby 

Alice's  Adventures  in  Won- 
derland 

The  Mill  on  the  Floss 

Transl.  from  Omar  Khay- 
yam 

History  of  the  Norman 
Conquest 

History  of  England  from  the 
Fall  of  Wolsey  to  the  De- 
feat of  the  Armada 

Cranford 

Pygmalion  and  Galatea 

History  of  the  English 
People 


ENGLISH   LITERATURE 


Born 

Died 

Masterpiece 

1794 

Grote,  George 

1871 

History  of  Greece 

1840 

Hardy,  Thomas 

The  Return  of  the  Native 

1822 

Hughes,  Thomas 

1896 

Tom  Brown  at  Rugby 

1825 

Huxley,  Thomas  Henry 

1895 

Life  of  David  Hume 

1848 

Jefferies,  Richard 

1887 

The  Life  of  the  Fields 

1819 

Kingsley,  Charles 

1875 

Hypatia 

1830 

Kingsley,  Henry 

1876 

The  Brown  Passenger 

1800 

Macatilay,  Thomas  Bab- 
ington 

1859 

History  of  England 

1828 

Meredith,  George 

1909 

The  Egoist 

1806 

Mill,  John  Stuart 

1873 

System  of  Logic 

1834 

Morris,  WilUam 

1896 

The  Earthly  Paradise 

1 801 

Newman,  John  Henry 

1890 

The  Dream  of  Gerontius 

1839 

Pater,  Walter 

1894 

Marius  the  Epicurean 

1814 

Reade,  Charles 

1884 

The  Cloister  and  the  Hearth 

1829 

Robertson,  T.  W. 

1871 

Caste 

1830 

Rossetti,  Christina  G. 

1894 

The  Goblin  Market 

1828 

Rossetti,  Dante  Gabriel 

1882 

The  Blessed  Damozel 

1819 

Ruskin,  John 

1900 

Modern  Painters 

1834 

Shorthouse,           Joseph 
Henry 

1903 

John  Inglesant 

1820 

Spencer,  Herbert 

1903 

Principles  of  Sociology 

1850 

Stevenson,  Robert  Louis 

1894 

Treasure  Island 

1837 

Swinburne,  Algernon  C. 

1909 

Atalanta  in  Calydon 

1811 

Thackeray,  WiUiam  M. 

1863 

Vanity  Fair 

1811 

Trollope,  Anthony 

1882 

Barchester  Towers 

1820 

Tyndall,  John 

1893 

Heat  as  a  Mode  of  Motion 

1822 

Wallace,  Alfred  Russel 

1913 

The  Wonderful  Century 

American  Authors 

of  the 

Victorian  Era 

1836 

Aldrich,  Thomas  Bailey 

1907 

Marjorie  Daw 

1800 

Bancroft,  George 

1891 

History  of  the  United  States 

I8SS 

Banner,  Henry  Cuyler 

1896 

Love  in  Old  Cloathes 

1844 

Cable,  George  Washing- 

The  Grandissimes 

ton 
183s  Clemens,   Samuel  Lang-     1910 

home  (Mark  Twain) 


The    Adventures    of    Tom 
Sawyer 


TABLE  OF  AUTHORS 


19 


Bofti 

Died 

Masterpiece 

1803 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo 

1882 

Essays 

1822 

Hale,  Edward  Everett 

1909 

The  Man  without  a 
Country 

1839 

Harte,  Francis  Bret 

1902 

The  Outcasts  of  Poker  Flat 

1804 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel 

1864 

The  Scarlet  Letter 

1809 

Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell 

1894 

The  Autocrat  of  the  Break- 
fast-Table 

1837 

Howells,  William  Dean 

The  Rise  of  Silas  Lapham 

1843 

James,  Henry 

1916 

The  Madonna  of  the  Future 

1842 

Lanier,  Sidney- 

1881 

The  Marshes  of  Glynn 

1819 

Lowell,  James  Russell 

1891 

The  Biglow  Papers  • 

1814 

Motley,  John  Lothrop 

1877 

The  Rise  of  the  Dutch  Re- 
public 

1823 

Parkman,  Francis 

1893 

Montcalm  and  Wolfe 

1796 

Prescott,  William  H. 

1859 

The  Conquest  of  Mexico 

1834 

Stockton,  Frank  R. 

1859 

The  Lady  or  the  Tiger 

1811 

Stowe,  Mrs.  Harriet  B. 

1896 

Uncle  Tom's  Cabin 

1817 

Thoreau,  Henry  D. 

1862 

Walden 

1827 

Wallace,  Lewis 

1905 

Ben  Hur 

1819 

Whitman,  Walt 

1892 

0  Captain,  My  Captain 

1807 

Whittier,  John  Greenleaf 

1892 

Snow-Bound 

Australian  Authors 

1846  Clarke,  Marcus  A,  H.  1881  For  the  Term  of  his  Natural 

Life 
1833  Gordon,  Adam  Lindsay       1870  Bush  Ballads 

1841  Kendall,  Henry  Clarence     1882  Leaves  from  an  Australian 

Forest 

Anglo-Indian  Authors 


1832 

Arnold,  Sir  Edwin 

1904 

The  Light  of  Asia 

183s 

Lyall,  Sir  Alfred 

1911 

Siva 

1847 

Steele,  Mrs.  F.  A. 

The  Potter's  Thumb 

Tagore,  Rabindranath 

The    King    of    the    Dark 
Chamber 

20 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE 


VII 


The  Present-] 

DAY 

Born 

Died 

Masterpiece 

183s 

Austin,  Alfred 

1913 

Lucifer 

1877 

Barker,  Granville 

The  Madras  House 

i86o 

Barrie,  James  M. 

The  Little  Minister 

1867 

Bennett,  Arnold 

The  Old  Wives'  Tale 

1844 

Bridges,  Robert 

The  Growth  of  Love 

1857 

Conrad,  Joseph 

Lord  Jim 

1839 

De  Morgan,  William 

AUce-for-Short 

1867 

Galsworthy,  John 

Strife 

1857 

Gissing,  George 

1903 

Our  Friend,  the  Charlatan 

Gregory,  Lady  Augusta 

The  Workhouse  Ward 

1861 

Hewlett,  Maurice 

The  Madonna  of  the  Peach- 
Tree 

1851 

Jones,  Henry  Arthtir 

Michael  and  his  Lost  Angel 

1871 

Kennedy,  Charles  Rann 

The  Servant  in  the  House 

1865 

Kipling,  Rudyard 

Captains  Courageous 

1863 

Locke,  WilUam  J. 

The  Beloved  Vagabond 

1874 

Masefield,  John 

The  Dauber 

1853 

Moore,  George 

The  Mummer's  Wife 

1863 

Morrison,  Arthur 

Tales  of  Mean  Streets 

1880 

Noyes,  Alfred 

Tales  of  the  Mermaid  Inn 

1868 

Phillips,  Stephen 

1916 

Paolo  and  Francesca 

I8SS 

Pinero,  Sir  Arthiu- 

Iris 

1856 

Shaw,  George  Bernard 

Candida 

Sinclair,  May 

The  Divine  Fire 

1863 

Sutro,  Alfred 

The  Builder  of  Bridges 

1871 

Synge,  John  Millington 

1912 

Riders  to  the  Sea 

1859 

Thompson,  Francis 

1907 

The  Hound  of  Heaven 

1851 

Ward,  Mrs,  Humphry 

Robert  Elsmere 

1858 

Watson,  William 

Wordsworth's  Grave 

1866 

Wells,  Herbert  George 

The  New  Machiavelli 

1865 

Yeats,  WiUiam  Butler 

The  King's  Threshold 

1864 

Zangwill,  Israel 

The  Melting-Pot 

TABLE  OF  AUTHORS 


21 


American  Authors  of  the 

Present-day 

Born 

Died 

Masterpiece 

1849 

Allen,  James  Lane 

King  Solomon  of  Kentucky 

1837 

Burroughs,  John 

Pepacton 

1871 

Churchill,  Winston 

The  Crisis 

1854 

Crawford,  F.  Marion 

1909 

Mr.  Isaacs 

Dargan,  Mrs.  Olive  Til- 

Lords  and  Lovers 

ford 

1857 

Deland,          Margaretta 
Wade  Campbell 

The  Iron  Woman 

1850 

Field,  Eugene 

1895 

Echoes  from  the  Sabine  Farm 

1862 

Freeman,  Mrs.  Mary  E. 
Wilkins 

A  New  England  Nun 

1844 

Gilder,  Richard  Watson 

1909 

Two  Worlds 

i860 

Garland,  Hamlin 

Among  the  Corn-Rows 

1848 

Harris,  Joel  Chandler 

1908 

Uncle  Remus  ;  His  Songs 
and  His  Sayings 

1864 

Hovey,  Richard 

1900 

Taliesin :  A  Masque 

187s 

Mackaye,  Percy 

The  Scarecrow 

1852 

Markham,  Edwin 

The  Man  with  the  Hoe 

1869 

Moody,  William  Vaughan 

1910 

The  Faith-Healer 

1870 

Norris,  Frank 

1902 

The  Pit 

1853 

Page,  Thomas  Nelson 

Meh  Lady 

1867 

Porter,   William    Sidney 
(0.  Henry.) 

1910 

A  Municipal  Report 

1854 

Riley,  James  Whitcomb 

1916 

The  Old  Swimmin'  Hole 

1862 

Wharton,  Mrs.  Edith 

The  House  of  Mirth 

i860 

Wister,  Owen 

The  Virginian 

I8SS 

Woodberry,  George  Ed- 

The North  Shore  Watch 

1861 

ward 

Canada 
Carman,  Bliss 

Low  Tide  on  Grand  Pr6 

1869 

Leacock,  Stephen 

Arcadian  Adventures  with 
the  Idle  Rich 

1862 

Parker,  Gilbert 

The  Right  of  Way 

i860 

Roberts,  Charles  G.  D. 

Earth's  Enigmas 

South 
Schreiner,  Olive 

Africa 

Dreams 

22  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

QUESTIONS   AND   TOPICS   FOR   DISCUSSION 

1.  During  how  many  centuries  has  English  literature  been  produced? 

2.  In  what  geographical  divisions  may  English-speaking  people  of  to-day 
be  grouped  ? 

3.  Give  names  and  dates  of  the  historical  divisions  of  English  literature. 

4.  Name  the  chief  types  of  literature  in  the  order  of  their  coming  into 
great  prominence  during  the  history  of  English  literature. 

5.  Summarize  each  of  the  definitions  of  these  types  of  literature,  using 
one  sentence  for  each  summary. 

6.  Name  at  least  four  authors  of  those  most  prominent  during  each 
historical  period  of  English  literature,  and  give  the  title  of  a  masterpiece 
by  each  of  the  authors  you  name. 


CHAPTER  II  ' 

ANGLO-SAXON  AND   MIDDLE-ENGLISH   LITERATURE 

600-1154 

I.  Anglo-Saxon 

Who  the  Anglo-Saxons  were.  —  The  earliest  human  inhab- 
itants of  the  British  Isles  appear  to  have  been  cave  dwellers  and 
men  much  like  the  Eskimos  of  Greenland.  Then  came  the 
Iberians,  among  the  descendants  of  whom  are,  perhaps,  the 
Basques  of  northern  Spain.  A  third  race  to  dwell  in  those 
islands  was  the  Celts,  who  probably  gave  the  name  Albion 
to  what  we  now  know  as  England,  though  it  is  not  impossible 
that  Albion  may  be  an  Iberian  name.  The  first  Celts  to 
come  from  the  continent  were  Goidels  (or  Gaels),  and  a  later 
swarm  were  Britons.  It  is  from  this  second  group  of  Celts 
that  the  name  Britain  is  derived.  Gauls,  Belgians,  and  Ro- 
mans also  came  before  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era.  It 
was  only  the  Romans  who  conquered  a  great  part  of  the  islands. 
They  came  first  under  Julius  Caesar,  in  55  B.C.,  Caesar  thinking 
it  necessary  to  invade  Britain  in  order  to  prevent  the  Britons 
from  coming  to  the  continent  in  aid  of  their  kindred  whom  he 
was  subduing  there.  Britain  remained  a  part  of  the  Roman 
Empire  until  410  a.d.,  over  four  and  one  half  centuries,  when 
the  Romans  permanently  withdrew  because  all  of  Rome's  sol- 
diers were  needed  to  keep  off  attacks  of  barbarians  much  nearer 
Rome  than  Britain.  The  Romans  did  much  for  Britain.  They 
built  fine  roads,  cleared  marshes  for  tillage,  opened  up  mines, 

23 


24  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

built  houses  and  cities,  extinguished  tribal  antagonisms,  and 
administered  justice. 

As  early  as  the  fourth  century  B.C.  the  Saxons  began  to  invade 
England,  first  as  merciless  pirates  and  later  as  home  seekers. 
They  appear  to  have  come  from  the  coast  of  the  continent  all 
the  way  from  the  northern  part  of  what  is  now  Denmark  to  as 
far  south  and  west  as  into  what  is  now  the  country  of  Holland. 
They  brought  with  them  the  Jutes  from  Jutland  or  northern 
Denmark,  and  the  Angles  from  what  is  now  Schleswig-Hol- 
stein. 

The  Jutes  subdued  southeastern  England  and  the  Isle  of 
Wight,  the  Angles  subdued  most  of  the  east  coast,  and  the 
Saxons  the  greater  part  of  the  interior  of  the  island.  After  the 
conquest  of  the  Britons  the  three  groups  of  conquerors  were 
known  by  the  Britons  as  Saxons,  though  they  gradually  came  to 
call  themselves  English,  a  name  originally  equivalent  to  Angle. 
From  these  various  facts  it  is  easy  to  see  why  we  call  the  inhab- 
itants-of  England  Anglo-Saxons,  down  until  the  time  of  the 
Norman  conquest  in  the  eleventh  century. 

Old  English,  or  Anglo-Saxon,  literature  began  in  the  days 
when  the  English  were  still  upon  the  continent  and  the  islands 
about  the  northwestern  shore  of  the  continent  of  Europe.  In 
fact,  it  began  at  a  time  so  remote  from  us  that  the  epic  poem 
of  Beowulf  in  its  original  form  could  not  have  been  written  by 
any  one  who  had  more  than  the  slightest  acquaintance  with 
ideas,  either  pagan  or  Christian,  from  southern  Europe.  Both 
the  language  and  the  ideas  of  Beowulf  in  the  original  form  of  the 
poem  were  of  the  ancient  Teutonic  world  alone. 

The  divisions  of  Anglo-Saxon  literature.  —  Anglo-Saxon 
literature  may  be  divided  into  two  parts :  that  which  was 
brought  from  the  continent  to  Great  Britain,  and  that  which 
was  produced  in  England  itself. 


ANGLO-SAXON  LITERATURE  2$ 


I.    On  the  Continent 


We  do  not  know  how  much  of  written  song  and  story  was 
brought  into  the  land  of  the  Britons  by  the  Angles  and  Saxons 
in  the  days  of  the  Wandering  of  the  Nations  into  the  confines 
of  the  Roman  Empire.  But  the  poem  of  Beowulf  and  one 
other  poem  called  Widsith,  the  Far- Wanderer,  are  the  most 
important  which  have  survived  from  among  those  brought  at 
the  time  of  the  migration.  The  first  of  these  is  the  greater, 
and  will  require  the  more  notice.  The  second  of  the  two, 
Widsith,  is  a  summary  of  the  heroic  poetry  of  the  land  the 
Romans  called  "  Germania."  It  is  probably  a  century  or  two 
older  than  Beowulf. 

Beowulf.  —  The  ancient  epic  of  Beowulf  must  have  been 
written  later  than  the  early  years  of  the  sixth  century  a.d., 
because  one  of  its  characters  was  a  great  northern  chieftain  of 
that  time.  The  poem  has  often  been  overestimated,  for  no 
other  apparent  reason  than  that  it  is  old.  Many  books  retain 
their  places  upon  our  library  shelves  chiefly  because  of  reputa- 
tion, and  not  because  any  one  cares  nowadays  to  read  them. 
This  epic,  however,  is  still  read  with  interest  by  those  who  are 
attracted  by  tales  of  wonder  and  by  those  interested  to  see  that 
the  characteristic  types  of  men  to-day  have  had  their  counter- 
parts in  olden  times.  The  strong,  stirring  movement  of  the 
rhythm  of  the  poem,  the  tone  of  tragic  melancholy,  the  pic- 
tures of  the  grim  and  somber  scenery  of  far  northern  Europe 
and  the  fascination  of  stormy  seas,  are  also  features  which  hold 
the  interest  of  its  readers.  Furthermore,  its  story  is  a  thrilling 
story  of  fighting ;  the  bold  and  courageous  sea  barons  of  Beowulf 
are  among  the  heroes  of  all  time. 

Beowulf  was  a  Geat  (probably  a  Swede),  a  thane  of  King 
Hygelac.    He  hears  that  Hrothgar,  king  of  the  Danes,  has  for 


26  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

twelve  years  been  harassed  by  a  moor  monster,  called  Grendel, 
who  comes  by  night  and  takes  away  as  many  as  thirty  thanes 
at  a  time.  He  sails  to  defend  the  Danes.  Hrothgar  and  his 
men  are  persuaded  to  withdraw  from  the  hall  or  palace,  leav- 
ing Beowulf  with  thirteen  chosen  Geats  to  await  Grendel's  next 
attack.  Grendel  arrives  in  due  course  of  time  and  at  once  kills 
one  of  the  Geats.  Then,  reaching  for  Beowulf,  he  quickly  finds 
his  match.  In  the  struggle  to  free  himself  from  Beowulf's  grasp, 
Grendel  loses  one  hand,  arm,  and  shoulder.  But  this  does  not 
end  the  matter.  Though  Hrothgar  returns  with  feasting  and 
gladness  to  the  hall,  Grendel's  mother,  a  monster  of  the  fens 
and  the  deep  waters,  rouses  herself  to  revenge.  She  comes  and 
seizes  the  favorite  attendant  of  the  Danish  chieftain.  Beowulf 
is  not  present,  but  is  quickly  summoned.  He  comes  with  his 
famous  sword,  Hrunting,  a  weapon  that  thus  far  has  never 
failed  the  man  who  has  grasped  it.  He  pursues  Grendel's  mother 
into  her  watery  lair,  but  there  finds  that  the  great  sword  is  use- 
less. He  sees  near  by  an  antique  sword,  keen-edged,  giant- 
forged,  and,  grasping  it,  slays  the  monster,  — "  She  collapsed 
on  the  floor,  the  sword  was  blood-stained,  the  warrior  rejoiced 
in  his  work,"  Beowulf  then  discovers  the  lifeless  body  of 
Grendel,  shears  off  the  head  and  carries  it  to  Hrothgar.  Beo- 
wulf leaves  Golden-hilt,  the  giant-forged  sword,  with  Hrothgar, 
and  returns  to  the  court  of  Hygelac. 

The  second  part  of  the  poem  shows  Beowulf,  the  great 
swimmer  and  fighter,  now  fighting  with  human  enemies,  after 
having  been  fifty  years  a  king.  Beowulf  wins  all  combats, 
until  one  day  he  goes  to  do  battle  with  a  dragon  who  for  three 
hundred  years  has  guarded  a  treasure  in  a  cave  near  the  "  sea- 
surge."  King  Beowulf  and  one  retainer,  Wiglaf,  face  the  fire- 
breathing  dragon  and  dispatch  him  with  sword  and  dagger; 
but  Beowulf  is  mortally  wounded.     Even  in  his  death  the  great 


ANGLO-SAXON  LITERATURE  27 

hero  brings  benefits  to  his  people,  for  the  wonderful  treasure  is 
now  theirs. 

A  book  is  great  which  adequately  reflects,  and  by  such  reflec- 
tion influences,  the  abiding  characteristics  and  course  of  human 
life.  The  epic  of  Beowulf  has  some  elements  of  greatness.  It  re- 
veals that  the  early  English  were  of  the  same  imaginative  and  tu- 
multuous temperament,  the  same  mixture  of  joy  and  somberness, 
as  the  English  of  much  later  date,  and  it  has  by  its  importance 
•helped  to  continue  these  traits  of  temperament  to  our  own  day, — 
for  literature  that  is  worth  while  is  not  only  a  reflection  of  life 
but  also  an  inspiration  to  life.  And  yet  these  traits  in  the  mind 
and  mood  of  the  early  English  are  revealed  in  this  epic  only  by  the 
fact  that  the  writer  of  the  poem  and,  we  must  infer,  his  audience 
were  deeply  in  sympathy  with  the  people  who  then  possessed 
these  traits ;  for  the  characters  in  the  poem  were  not  English, 
but  belonged  to  tribes  living  farther  north  than  the  English 
lived  even  when  they  were  upon  the  continent  of  Europe. 

We  should  not  think  of  the  author  of  Beowulf  as  an  English 
Homer.  And  yet  the  poem  is  not  unlike  the  Odyssey  because 
it  deals  with  the  life  of  the  aristocratic  in  the  political  and  social 
realm,  and  because  its  ideas  are  those  of  noblemen,  not  only  in 
the  sense  of  rank,  but  in  the  sense  of  manhood  as  well.  It  is 
evident  that  this  poem  could  not  have  been  written  in  an  age  of 
utter  barbarism.  Many  complex  social  situations  and  much 
refinement  in  thought  are  represented  in  it ;  and  this  could  not 
have  been  unless  its  author  had  been  acquainted  with  an  ad- 
vanced degree  of  civilization  and  gentle  culture.  The  inhabit- 
ants of  Great  Britain  had  become  rather  well  Romanized  under 
the  rule  of  the  Caesars,  and  they  thought  that  the  Angles, 
Saxons,  and  Jutes  who  conquered  them  were  dreadful  savages. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  Latin  writer,  Tacitus,  praised  very  highly, 
in  exaggerated  terms,  the  fine  qualities  of  the  civilization  of  the 


28  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

inhabitants  of  Germania.  But  an  examination  of  the  remains 
which  have  come  down  from  the  Bronze  and  the  early  Iron  Age, 
and  a  study  of  the  ancient  poetry  produced  among  the  English 
while  they  were  still  upon  the  continent,  shows  that  a  middle 
ground  between  the  opinions  of  the  Britons  and  of  Tacitus  is  the 
safe  one  to  take,  —  the  ground  that  among  the  Angles,  Saxons, 
and  Jutes  were  many  of  the  elements  of  civilization  and  culture. 

2.    In  England 

The  Christian  epics.  —  There  are  a  few  Christian  sentiments 
in  Beowulf,  but  they  were,  apparently,  introduced  by  the  copy- 
ist of  the  main  body  of  the  poem  as  it  has  come  down  to  us. 
But  when  we  turn  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  literature  produced  in 
England  itself,  we  find  at  least  three  Christian  epics  which  were 
produced  in  Old  English  and  which  are  worthy  of  mention. 
These  three  Christian  epic  poems  are  Juliana,  Elene  (Helena 
the  mother  of  Constantine  the  Great,  and  finder  of  the  true 
cross),  and  Andreas.  Juliana  and  Elene  were  the  works  of  Cyne- 
wulf,  probably  a  Northumbrian,  that  is,  a  man  from  north  of 
the  Humber  River.  It  is  not  so  certain  that  A  ndreas  was  written 
by  Cynewulf,  though  its  spirited  narrative  and  its  ornamented 
style  are  very  like  those  of  Cynewulf.  Andreas  is  the  most  in- 
teresting of  the  three  epics,  being  a  story  of  the  adventurous 
voyage  of  St.  Andrew  for  the  purpose  of  rescuing  St.  Matthew 
from  the  hands  of  cannibals. 

The  Old  English  scholars.  —  When  the  EngHsh  in  Northum- 
bria  were  converted  to  Christianity,  Latin  literature  began  to 
affect  the  progress  of  English  literature.  The  schools  and 
teachers  of  the  part  of  England  north  of  the  Humber  River 
quickly  became  the  equals  of  any  upon  the  continent.  Yet 
thoughtfulness  and  skill  and  imagination  were  not  confined  to 
the  learned  in  the  schools.    A  simple  cowherd  named  Caedmon 


ANGLO-SAXON  LITERATURE  29 

had  the  rhythmic  fire  within  his  soul ;  and  when  occasion  pre- 
sented itself  at  the  hands  of  Hilda,  the  Northumbrian  Abbess, 
Caedmon  composed  and  sang  the  best  paraphrases  of  the  Scrip- 
tures which  ancient  England  produced.  This  was  in  the  last 
half  of  the  seventh  century.  Baeda,  a  great  scholar  of  St.  Paul's 
monastery  at  Jarrow,  Northumberland,  during  the  early  years 
of  the  eighth  century,  wrote  many  treatises  in  Latin  which  were 
used  as  textbooks  in  even  far-away  Italy.  The  work  from  his 
hand  which  is  of  more  interest  to  us,  however,  was  the  last  one 
he  wrote,  a  translation  into  English  of  the  Gospel  of  St.  John. 

The  torch  of  learning  passed  on  to  Alcuin  in  the  eighth  cen- 
tury, to  iElfred  in  the  ninth,  and  to  iElfric  in  the  tenth.  Al- 
cuin is  a  prominent  figure  in  the  history  of  education,  as  it  was 
he  whom  Charlemagne,  the  great  king  of  all  the  Franks,  sum- 
moned in  782  to  come  to  the  continent  and  take  charge  of  his 
Palace  School. 

Alcuin  was  of  Northumbria ;  JElhed  and  ^Elfric  of  Wessex. 
iElfred  sometimes  seems  to  us  to  have  been  almost  as  legendary 
as  Arthur  of  the  Round  Table.  But  he  was  a  very  real  and  hu- 
man character,  —  a  good  and  wise  king,  a  brave  fighter,  and 
an  admirable  scholar.  Most  of  his  scholarly  work  consisted  of 
translations  from  the  Latin  into  English.  It  is  to  him  also  that 
we  owe  that  most  interesting  book  known  as  the  Anglo-Saxon 
Chronicle.  ^Elfred  began  the  records  which  we  find  in  the 
Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  by  directing  his  helpers  to  compile 
from  the  Ecclesiastical  History  of  Baeda  and  from  the  writings 
of  some  other  chroniclers  the  events  which  had  occurred  in 
Britain  from  the  time  of  the  Roman  invasion.  After  ^Elfred's 
time  the  work  was  continued  by  writers  contemporaneous  with 
the  events  recorded,  until  the  death  of  King  Stephen  in  11 54. 

JEUric  was  a  grammarian,  a  glossary  maker,  a  writer  of 
sermons,  and  a  translator  of  a  part  of  the  Old  Testament.    Dry 


30  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

as  all  this  work  may  seem,  yet  the  prose  in  which  he  wrote  was 
the  best  prose  in  the  Old  English  language,  and  his  translations 
from  the  Bible  are  the  most  intelligently  made,  not  even  except- 
ing the  work  of  Wycliffe,  before  Tyndale  in  the  sixteenth  century. 
iElfric  was  not  only  highly  intelligent,  but  he  was  also  the  most 
careful  artist  among  the  older  prose  writers,  as  Cynewulf  had 
been  the  most  careful  artist  among  the  older  poets. 

II.  Middle-English 

The  historical  background.  —  Middle-English  Uterature  might 
as  well  be  called  Norman-English,  for  it  was  the  conquest  of 
England  by  William  of  Normandy  in  1066  and  the  subsequent 
severe  discipline  of  both  English  and  Normans  under  William 
and  Henry  I  and  Henry  II  that  made  the  two  races  one  in 
blood,  in  interests,  and  in  language.  Willia'm's  feudal  army  and 
his  fierce  barons  brought  with  them  from  France  what  Uttle 
civilization  northern  France  then  possessed,  and  made  easily 
possible  the  later  influence  upon  the  English  people  of  the 
wonderful  culture  of  northern  France  during  the  thirteenth  and 
fourteenth  centuries.  Architecture,  sculpture,  painting,  music, 
poetry,  all  of  these  arts  have  been  thought  by  many  not  to  have 
reached  a  higher  point  at  any  time  than  they  reached  in  Italy 
and  France  during  the  early  centuries  of  the  Crusades,  and  it  was 
due  to  the  conquest  of  England  by  William  of  Normandy  that 
the  influence  of  these  arts  could  reach  England's  isolated  shores. 
It  was  during  the  centuries  from  1200  to  1500  that  the  Gothic 
cathedrals,  with  all  the  wealth  of  sculpture,  painting,  and  music 
that  followed  them,  were  begun  in  northern  France  and  England. 
It  was  during  these  centuries  that  great  wars  with  France  were 
almost  constantly  in  progress,  and  this  meant  a  constant  contact 
with  the  rich  culture  which  France  was  absorbing  from  Italy 
along  with  that  which  she  was  cultivating  upon  her  own  part. 


MIDDLE-ENGLISH  LITERATURE  3 1 

Close  touch  with  the  science  and  learning  and  commerce  of  the 
East  did  not  come  until  the  next,  or  Renaissance  period,  which 
was  most  powerful  after  the  fall  of  Constantinople  into  the 
hands  of  the  Ottoman  Turks  in  1453.  But  the  Norman  court, 
the  Norman  clergy,  and  the  Norman  and  English  soldiers  who 
went  upon  the  continent  to  war  for  the  possession  of  French 
territory,  and  those  who  went  much  farther,  even  to  the  Holy 
Land,  as  crusaders,  or  soldiers  of  the  cross,  in  order  to  wrest 
from  the  Saracens  the  Holy  Sepulcher,  —  all  of  these  helped 
greatly  to  make  the  production  of  the  literature  which  flowered 
during  this  Middle-  or  Norman-English  period,  from  11 54  to 
1500. 

I.     To  Chaucer 

Layamon.  —  While  the  Anglo-Saxon  period  of  English  litera- 
ture closed  with  the  ending  of  the  Chronicle  in  11 54,  yet  it  was 
not  until  1200  that  the  Middle-English  period  began  to  be  fruit- 
ful. It  was  about  that  date,  usually  said  to  be  1205,  that  Laya- 
mon wrote  his  Brut^  or  Brutus.  Layamon  borrowed  his  ma- 
terial. In  1 147  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  had  completed  writing 
his  History  of  the  Kings  of  Britain.  He  had  written  it  in  Latin. 
It  was  a  wonderful  storybook.  Incorporated  within  it  were 
many  ancient  traditions  from  Wales.  Then,  in  11 55,  a  writer 
named  Wace  had  produced  a  book  entitled  Brut,  borrowing  much 
material  from  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth.  Wace  wrote  his  book 
in  French.  At  last,  Layamon  in  his  turn  borrowed  from  both 
Geoffrey  and  Wace,  and  in  an  English  poem  of  32,000  Hnes 
with  less  than  fifty  French  words  among  them,  introduced  into 
purely  English  literature  the  Welsh  traditions  out  of  which  grew 
the  stories  which  Malory  and  Tennyson  have  converted  into  the 
legends  of  Arthur  and  the  Round  Table.  Layamon  is  a  man  to 
be  remembered  for  three  reasons :    because  he  made  these  old 


32  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

British  tales  truly  English,  because  his  poetry  was  the  best 
poetry  in  English  since  the  days  of  Cynewulf,  and  because  it 
was  he  who  first  told,  so  far  as  we  know,  the  story  of  the  Passing 
of  Arthur. 

Ballads ;  comic  poems ;  romances ;  histories ;  religious  and 
moral  writings.  —  The  time  from  Layamon  to  the  middle  of  the 
fourteenth  century  is  rich  in  various  kinds  of  literature.  There 
are  the  popular  ballads ;  there  are  the  comic  poems,  such  as 
The  Fox  and  the  Wolf,  and  The  Owl  and  the  Nightingale ;  there  is 
that  very  original  work  among  medieval  romances.  Sir  Gawain 
and  the  Green  Knight;  there  is  Pearly  our  earliest  In  Memoriam 
and  a  sort  of  unorthodox  theological  argument,  probably  by  the 
same  Lancashire  poet  who  wrote  Sir  Gawain;  there  are  a  few 
histories,  sermons,  and  religious  handbooks;  there  are  the 
more  important  religious  writings  of  William  Langland  and  of 
John  Wy cliff e ;   and  there  are  the  works  of  Gower. 

Ballads.  —  A  few  of  the  ballads  have  survived  and  are  as  in- 
teresting to  us  as  they  were  to  the  readers  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury. Folk  tales  furnished  much  of  the  material  for  the  longer 
and  earlier  epics.  They  also  provided  the  subject  matter  for 
these  narrative  songs  we  are  here  calling  ballads.  The  ballad  of 
Chevy  Chase,  that  of  the  Twa  Corbies,  and  the  Lytell  Gestes  of 
Robin  Hood  are  the  most  interesting  of  them  all. 

Comic  poems.  —  The  monkish  Anglo-Saxon  writers  had  been 
too  anxious  about  the  saving  of  their  souls  to  permit  them  to 
give  much  time  to  comic  writings ;  but  by  the  time  the  Middle- 
English  period  was  well  under  way  much  comic  writing  from 
the  continent  had  become  popular.  The  two  poems  in  fable 
manner  mentioned  above,  namely,  The  Fox  and  the  Wolf  and 
The  Owl  and  the  Nightingale,  are  the  best  among  them  all. 

Gawain.  —  The  story  of  Gawain  has  been  called  a  chivalrous 
Pilgrim's  Progress.    The  poem  is  the  story  of  the  ordeal,  in 


MIDDLE-ENGLISH  LITERATURE  33 

courage,  in  loyalty,  and  in  temperance,  of  Gawain,  a  knight  ol 
King  Arthur's  Court.  In  this  poem  Gawain  is  treated  as  per- 
fect in  courtesy,  though  that  has  not  been  the  attitude  of  all  the 
poets  who  have  written  of  him.  The  story  revolves  about  a 
curious  incident.  While  Arthur's  court  is  feasting  and  await- 
ing some  "  main  marvel,"  there  rides  into  the  hall  of  the  king 
a  Green  Knight  upon  a  green  horse,  and  asks,  "  Will  any  gentle- 
man cut  off  my  head,  on  condition  that  I  may  have  a  fair  blow 
at  him,  and  no  favor,  in  a  twelve-month's  time?  "  Gawain 
accepts  the  hazard  and  cuts  off  the  Green  Knight's  head,  where- 
upon the  head,  which  is  picked  up  by  the  Green  Knight,  speaks, 
summoning  Gawain  to  meet  him  at  the  Green  Chapel  in  a  year's 
time  and  await  the  return  blow. 

Histories.  —  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth's  History  of  the  Kings 
of  Britain  was,  of  course,  feigned  history,  or  fiction.  The 
Anglo-Saxons  Chronicle  was  true  history,  though  often  that  of 
the  states  of  mind  of  the  monks  at  Peterborough  rather  than  a 
record  of  outward  events.  But  when  Henry  II,  the  great  An- 
gevin, became  king  of  England  in  1 1 54,  the  chronicling  of  events 
began  to  be  done  only  in  Latin  prose  and  in  French  rhyme.  The 
French  rhymers,  however,  stimulated  the  singers  and  sayers  in 
English,  among  them  no  rhyming  historian  excelling  in  style 
Robert  of  Gloucester.  Robert  had  much  to  inspire  him,  for  he 
lived  during  the  reign  of  Edward  I,  one  of  the  greatest  of  the 
medieval  kings. 

The  Travels  of  Sir  John  Maundeville  is  a  storybook  compiled 
by  Jean  de  Bourgogne,  a  physician  who  died  at  Liege  in  1372. 
An  anonymous  writer  translated  it  into  English  late  in  the  four- 
teenth century.  We  mention  it  here,  because  it  seems  to  have 
been  known  in  Chaucer's  time,  Maundeville  is  as  much  a  fictive 
character  as  are  the  tales  he  tells,  and  the  book  belongs  along 
with  the  feigned  history  by  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  so  far  as  its 


34  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

relation  to  fact  is  concerned.  But,  in  its  translated  form,  it  is 
classic  English. 

Religious  and  moral  writings.  —  Among  religious  writings,  the 
Ayenhite  of  Inwyt  (Remorse  of  Conscience)  is  sometimes  praised 
by  historians  of  literature,  but  it  is  only  a  translation  from  the 
French  made  in  1340  by  a  monk  at  Canterbury,  and  a  very  poor 
translation  at  that.  Its  chief  interest  is  that  it  is  extant  in  the 
good  monk's  own  handwriting.  A  work  called  Ormulum  is 
also  preserved  in  the  handwriting  of  its  author;  we  do  not 
know  who  he  was,  though  no  doubt  his  name  was  Orm,  for 
we  read,  "  This  book  is  named  Ormulum  for  that  Orm  it 
wrought."  The  book  is  a  plea  for  the  "  simple  life,"  but  is 
more  famous  as  a  curiosity  on  account  of  its  peculiar  words. 
Its  writer  seems  to  have  been  a  Dane  in  blood.  The  Ancren 
Riwle  is  the  only  other  work  of  this  sort  which  we  need  to  think 
of  as  of  much  worth.  The  book  was  intended  to  be  a  rule  book 
for  Anchoresses,  but  the  passages  which  hold  our  attention 
most  are  those  that  are  humorous,  whether  so  intended  or  not. 
For  instance,  it  is  related  that  a  nun  keeps  a  cow ;  when  the  cow 
strays  she  is  impounded ;  the  religieuse  loses  her  temper  and  be- 
comes rather  furious  in  her  speech ;  but  in  the  end  she  finds  it 
necessary  to  humble  herself,  implore  the  heyward,  and  pay  the 
damages.  ^'  Wherefore,"  says  the  chronicle,  "  it  is  best  for 
nuns  to  keep  a  cat  only." 

While  the  Pearl  had  been  a  kind  of  theological  thesis,  intended 
to  prove  the  somewhat  heretical  notion  that  all  souls  of  the 
blessed  are  equal  in  happiness,  each  being  a  king  or  a  queen, 
the  Vision  Concerning  Piers  Plowman  by  William  Langland  is 
the  work  of  a  passionately  zealous  moral  reformer.  The  book 
is  not  unlike  Pilgrim^s  Progress,  though  the  writer  is  no  such 
constructive  artist  as  John  Bunyan.  Since  the  book  is  in  the 
form  of  a  dream  which  came  to  the  author  "  in  a  May  morning, 


MIDDLE-ENGLISH  LITERATURE  35 

on  Malvern  hills,"  we  should  expect  it  to  be  written  in  a  rambling 
fashion.  And  it  is.  But  its  incoherence  may  be  due  as  much 
to  the  fact  that  its  author  wavers  constantly  between  his 
highly  serious  and  his  very  comic  views  of  life.  Due  to  the 
persistence  of  the  idea  that  the  religious  and  moral  life  must  be 
a  sad  and  somber  one,  the  commentators  upon  Langland  too 
often  overlook  the  fact  that  comic  description  occupies  much  of 
the  space  within  the  Vision.  The  work  is  filled  with  typical 
characters  drawn  from  ordinary  life,  and  is  in  reality  a  search 
after  the  truths  important  to  human  existence.  This  book  was 
followed  by  Dowel,  Dobet,  and  Dobest,  also  by  Langland.  Do 
Well,  Do  Bet,  and  Do  Best  are  characters  in  the  end  identified 
with  Jesus  Christ,  who  is  Love  dressed  as  Piers  Plowman.  The 
poem  should  be  carefully  read  along  with  the  writings  of  Chaucer, 
by  the  student  who  desires  to  secure  a  full-rounded  picture  of 
English  society  in  the  fourteenth  century,  for  it  gives  the  side 
of  life  which  Chaucer  neglects. 

While  there  may  have  been  mild  and  unessential  heresy  in 
the  author  of  the  Pearl,  it  remained  for  Wycliffe  to  become 
England's  first  real  Protestant  in  connection  with  a  doctrine 
which  was  considered  vital  by  the  Church,  the  doctrine  of 
transubstantiation,  or  of  the  changing  of  the  bread  and  wine 
of  the  sacrament  into  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ.  Wycliffe's 
battle  with  the  papal  authority  was  a  serious  one.  As  reformers 
who  are  at  all  successful  usually  do,  he  appealed  to  the  common 
people  in  their  own  speech,  going  to  what  the  papacy  at  that 
time  considered  the  excessive  length  of  translating  the  New 
Testament  into  the  English  tongue,  and  directing  and  himself 
working  upon  a  part  of  the  translation  of  the  Old  Testament. 
The  excellent  English  of  both,  however,  is  due  to  the  labors  of 
a  much-overlooked  man,  John  Purvey,  who  revised  the  whole, 
doing  it,  though,  under  the  authority  of  Wycliffe  himself. 


36  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

John  Gower  was  a  learned  and  talented  man,  but  greatly- 
lacking  the  genius  of  either  Langland  or  Chaucer.  He  wrote 
in  French,  in  Latin,  and  in  English.  He  was,  like  Langland, 
a  story-teller,  and  a  religious  and  social  reformer.  His  age 
needed  more  interesting  reformers  than  he,  however.  In  1393 
was  written  his  Confessio  Amantis;  in  spite  of  its  title,  it  was  in 
the  English  tongue.  While  it  should  be  said  in  favor  of  the  book 
that  it  is  a  larger,  and  a  better,  collection  of  tales  than  any  which 
had  preceded  it  in  English,  yet  the  reader  generally  agrees  with 
James  Russell  Lowell  that  the  writings  of  Gower  are  most  aptly 
called  "  works." 

2.    Chaucer 

The  influences  making  Chaucer.  —  Ruskin  has  brilliantly 
made  the  claim  for  the  thirteenth  century  that  it  was  the  great- 
est century  in  the  world's  history.  It  certainly  was  a  century 
in  which  the  arts,  especially  in  Italy  and  in  France,  attained 
in  many  instances  heights  which  they  have  not  again  attained. 
If  that  century  has  any  rivals  in  the  arts,  they  are  two  only, 
the  third  century  before  Christ  and  the  sixteenth  after.  How- 
ever, the  first  of  these  was  confined  in  its  culture  to  so  limited  an 
area,  Greece  alone,  and  the  second  had  within  it  so  many  ele- 
ments of  decay,  that  it  is  not  difficult  for  many  to  agree  with 
Ruskin  that  the  thirteenth  century,  with  its  highly  speculative 
theology  and  philosophy,  its  foundation  of  many  of  the  world's 
greatest  universities,  its  building  of  the  world's  most  wonderful 
cathedrals,  —  the  century  of  Dante,  "  the  Central  Man  of  all  the 
World,"  —  was  the  foremost  in  the  production  of  those  things 
which  have  refined  human  existence.  This  is  the  century  which 
preceded  Chaucer,  and  helped,  through  its  literature  chiefly, 
more  than  all  other  things  combined,  to  make  Chaucer  what  he 
was.    Chaucer  was  born  about  the  year  1340. 


MIDDLE-ENGLISH  LITERATURE  37 

Chaucer  is  one  of  the  finest  and  greatest  of  Hterary  artists. 
It  is  customary  to  divide  his  work  into  that  of  a  French,  an 
ItaHan,  and  an  EngHsh  period.  But  while  this  is  a  considerable 
aid  to  the  memory  in  classifying  his  writings,  it  is  a  misleading 
device.  The  studies  of  Chaucer  in  ItaHan  literature  and  his 
residence  for  short  periods  in  Genoa,  Pisa,  Florence,  and  the 
cities  of  Lombardy  were  important.  They  brought  him  into 
contact  with  the  productions  of  Dante,  Petrarch,  and  Boccaccio. 
They  opened  up  to  him  the  strong  and  stirring  way  of  telling 
exquisite  stories  which  those  men  had  inherited  from  the  classics 
of  antiquity.  But  this  does  not  prove  that  he  became  Italianate. 
He  did  not  merely  copy  Italian  work.  Among  his  earliest 
productions,  before  the  so-called  "  Italian  period  "  in  his  life, 
he  had  already  employed  "  heroic  "  verse  (the  five-foot  rhymed 
couplet),  the  ten-syllable  line,  and  the  narrative  stanza,  all  of 
which  he  is  so  often  said  to  have  copied  from  Italy.  Chaucer 
was  an  independent  genius  in  his  methods,  influenced,  of  course, 
by  all  that  he  experienced,  but  never  a  mere  imitator. 

He  owes, much  more  to  France  than  to  Italy ;  and  this  is  due 
not  alone  to  the  fact  that  he  was  brought  up  in  the  Frenchified 
court  of  Edward  III,  but  also  to  the  fact  that  it  was  the  litera- 
ture of  thirteenth-century  France  that  was  dominating  all  artis- 
tic authorship  in  his  day.  English  literature  had  been  in  its 
achievements  not  only  behind  in  time  but  below  in  quality  the 
literature  of  France.  But  in  Chaucer  it  was  raised  to  the  level 
of  the  best  that  France  had  produced ;  and  in  England  in  his 
works,  as  well  as  in  Italian  and  French  literature,  the  fine  spirit 
of  courtesy  and  grace,  which  was  the  ideal  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
found  high  and  notable  culmination. 

Chaucer's  life.  —  As  is  the  case  with  most  that  has  been 
written  about  the  life  of  Shakespeare,  so  it  is  with  most  that  has 
been  written  about  the  life  of  Chaucer ;  it  consists,  in  both  cases, 


38  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

of  guesses.  A  few  facts  concerning  the  life  of  Chaucer  are  all 
that  are  known.  In  youth  he  was  a  page  at  court.  It  was  dur- 
ing this  time  that  the  Black  Prince  brought  the  French  king  a 
prisoner  to  London,  in  1357.  Later,  in  1359,  Chaucer  went 
with  the  army  of  Edward  III  in  his  invasion  of  France.  He  was 
made  a  prisoner,  and  was  held  by  the  French  for  a  few  months. 
It  is  recorded  that  sixteen  pounds  were  paid  by  the  king  towards 
his  ransom.  Like  Shakespeare,  Chaucer  had  some  business 
acumen,  it  would  seem.  At  least  he  became  a  customs  official, 
as  the  nineteenth-century  Hawthorne  did  in  America ;  though 
the  Englishman  seems  to  have  been  a  much  niore  active  occu- 
pant of  his  office  than  the  American  of  his.  Chaucer  saw  much 
of  political  turmoil :  the  controversy  over  administrative  reforms 
which  centered  about  the  Good  Parliament  of  1376 ;  Wat  Tyler's 
Rebellion  in  1380,  which  was  a  peasants'  revolt ;  the  absolutism, 
and  finally  the  dethronement  of  Richard  11.  He  saw  much  of 
ecclesiastical  and  religious  strife  :  the  beheading  of  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury  by  the  rebellious  peasants;  the  Lollard 
movement,  partly  poHtical  and  partly  socialistic ;  and  the  move- 
ment toward  reform,  under  Wycliffe.  He  saw  the  beginnings  of 
modern  ideas  in  the  literature  about  him ;  not  much  that  was 
modern  in  Gower,  but  a  great  deal  in  Langland  and  in  Wycliffe, 
—  and  as  for  himself,  he,  along  with  Shakespeare,  Spenser,  and 
Milton,  is  one  of  the  poets  whose  ideas  are  primarily  those  of 
all  time. 

His  relation  to  the  people.  —  One  of  his  biographers  has 
written  —  and  many  others  have  written  similar  things  —  that 
"  Chaucer  was  not  a  poet  of  the  people."  This  is  said  because 
Chaucer  did  not  write  harshly  about  the  darker  side  of  the  life 
of  the  common  people.  But  surely  his  subtle  irony  in  the  de- 
scription of  the  qualities  of  the  mind  and  life  of  those  who  were 
responsible  for  the  sufferings  of  the  poor  is  not  a  less  effective 


MIDDLE-ENGLISH  LITERATURE  39 

weapon  than  the  uncouth  and  harsh  denunciations  by  the 
author  of  Piers  Plowman.  He  does  not  directly  morahze  in 
any  of  his  Tales ^  excepting  in  that  of  the  Canon's  Yeoman  and  in 
that  of  the  Manciple,  but,  as  Goethe  has  said,  ''  If  there  is  a 
moral  in  the  subject,  it  will  appear,  and  the  poet  has  nothing  to 
consider  but  the  effective  and  artistic  treatment  of  his  subject; 
if  he  has  as  high  a  soul  as  Sophocles,  his  influence  will  always  be 
moral,  let  him  do  what  he  will."  The  facts  are  that  Chaucer 
saw  much  of  the  people  and  sympathetically  understood  what 
he  saw,  and  then  vividly  and  clearly  pictured  the  chief  aspects 
of  the  life  of  the  most  typical  individuals  whom  he  had  seen. 

His  effect  upon  the  language.  —  Chaucer  translated  consider- 
ably from  other  languages  into  his  own ;  he  also  adapted  much 
that  he  found  in  other  languages.  He  handled  all  this  material 
in  a  scholarly  fashion.  But  he  was  one  who,  in  what  he  adapted 
and  brought  directly  over  from  othei*  languages  as  well  as  in 
what  he  invented,  reveals  that  he  saw  not  with  the  physical  eye 
alone,  but  also  with  his  imagination  and  with  his  reason.  As 
a  great  poet,  he  wrote  down  his  thought,  his  convictions,  and  his 
visions,  in  diction  and  phraseology  that  was  the  richest,  most 
beautiful,  and  most  effective  that  had  yet  been  employed  in 
England.  This  had  a  notable  effect  upon  the  language  of  the 
day.  ^ 

The  language  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  was  a  Teutonic  language, 
one  of  the  many  branches  of  the  Indo-European  tongue  which 
spread  from  India  to  the  west  of  Ireland.  The  Anglo-Saxon 
language  had  been,  in  the  northern  part  of  England,  much 
modified  by  the  invasion  of  the  Danes  during  the  eighth  and 
ninth  centuries.  In  the  south  it  had  been  much  modified  by 
the  Norman  Conquest  in  the  latter  part  of  the  eleventh  century. 
The  Danes  had  introduced  more  and  slightly  different  Teutonic 
words  and  phrases ;    the  Normans  introduced  the  French,  not  a 


40  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

Teutonic  but  a  Latin  language.  But  a  language  is,  above  all 
other  things,  the  possession  of  the  common  people.  It  grows 
chiefly  from  their  usage,  and  not  from  that  of  the  schools  of  the 
technically  learned  nor  from  the  courts.  In  spite  of  the  domi- 
nance of  Latin  and  French  in  schools  and  court,  by  the  middle 
of  the  fourteenth  century  the  language  which  had  come  down 
through  many  vicissitudes  and  with  many  changes  from  the 
Anglo-Saxons  had  become  recognized  as  fit  for  even  a  "  gentle- 
man "  to  speak  and  write.  This  language  Chaucer  used  so  finely 
and  so  energetically  that  the  language  of  the  common  people  in 
and  about  London,  the  Midland  dialect,  became  the  standard 
speech  of  the  English  race. 

His  lesser  works.  —  The  chief  product  of  the  early  days  of 
Chaucer's  career  as  a  poet  was  his  translation  of  the  Romance 
of  the  Rose,  sl  French  poem  of  the  greatest  days  of  the  medieval 
period,  and  originally  written  during  the  wonderful  century 
preceding  Chaucer,  probably  at  least  a  hundred  years  before  his 
day.  This  beautiful  poem  is  an  allegory  of  Love,  and  is  filled 
with  serious  and  satirical  subtleties.  His  translation  has  been 
lost,  so  we  are  not  interested  in  it  as  a  translation ;  but  in  its 
effects  we  are  greatly  interested,  for  it  had  a  more  profound 
effect  upon  its  translator  than  all  the  court  life,  all  the  conti- 
nental residence,  all  the  literature  of  medieval  Italy,  or  all  the 
literature  of  the  ancient  classical  age.  It  gave  him  suggestions 
of  the  forms  which  he  should  employ  in  his  own  productions,  and 
it  molded  forever  his  attitude  to  life. 

The  next  of  the  important  works  of  Chaucer  is  the  Troilus  and 
Criseyde,  not  a  translation,  as  it  is  often  called,  but  a  thorough 
remaking  of  an  epic  by  Boccaccio,  the  story-writer  of  fourteenth- 
century  Italy.  Though  occasionally  tedious,  still  it  was  a 
stronger  and  more  substantial  work  than  its  original.  The 
Renaissance,  in  which  Boccaccio  shared  in  Italy,  can  hardly 


MIDDLE-ENGLISH  LITERATURE        "^  41 

be  said  to  have  found  its  way  to  England  in  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury ;  hence  it  is  the  medieval  Chaucer  who  borrows  from  the 
renaissance  Boccaccio  and  excels  him  in  his  own  field. 

Aside  from  the  Canterbury  Tales,  there  remain  among  his  im- 
portant works,  The  Parliament  of  Fowls  and  the  Legend  0}  Good 
Wom^en,  both  of  them  filled  with  reminiscences  of  the  reading 
of  Dante,  Petrarch,  and  Boccaccio.  The  first  is  a  semi-political 
poem  in  celebration  of  the  wooing  of  Anne  of  Bohemia  by 
Richard  II  of  England.  The  second  is  written  in  praise  of 
the  faithful  love  of  woman. 

The  Canterbury  Tales.  —  In  the  fourteenth  century  it  was 
the  habit  of  the  English  people,  as  it  still  is,  upon  a  holiday  to 
make  a  pilgrimage,  traveling  in  groups.  The  most  pleasant 
pilgrimage  for  those  who  lived  in  Middlesex,  the  county  in 
which  Chaucer  lived,  was  to  the  shrine  of  Thomas  a  Becket,  at 
Canterbury.  Chaucer  must  have  made  one  of  these  pilgrimages 
in  some  spring-time  earlier  than  1388,  for  it  was  in  that  year 
that  the  Prologue  to  the  Canterbury  Tales  seems  to  have  been 
written.  These  pilgrimages  were  much  more  democratic  affairs 
in  those  days  than  they  are  now.  It  was  the  custom  to  start 
from  some  public  house  or  inn,  persons  of  all  ranks  and  walks 
of  life  traveling  freely  but  together  for  safety's  sake.  Chaucer 
makes  his  pilgrims  set  out  from  the  Tabard  Inn  of  Southwark, 
a  suburb  of  London,  to  ride  on  horseback  to  Canterbury  and 
home  again,  and  plans  to  make  each  of  them  tell  tales.  This 
is  the  framework  of  the  great  poem.  The  student  will  find  a 
somewhat  similar  device  employed  by  Boccaccio  before  Chau- 
cer, and  later  by  Longfellow  in  his  Tales  of  a  Wayside  Inn. 

Chaucer  had  a  magnificent  eye  for  color,  a  superb  ear  for 
music,  and  a  penetrative  insight  into  character.  The  Tales 
are  filled  with  the  love  of  external  nature.  The  lines  sing  them- 
selves forever  in  the  memory  of  any  one  who  reads  them.     It  is 


42  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

in  the  Prologue,  especially,  that  he  portrays  nearly  all  the  types 
of  character  of  consequence  in  the  England  which  had  become 
truly  English  by  his  time.  The  characters  stand  out  from  the 
pages  as  living  men  and  women.  "  I  see  all  the  pilgrims,"  said 
Dryden,  "  their  humours,  their  features,  and  their  very  dress, 
as  distinctly  as  if  I  had  supped  with  them  at  the  Tabard  in 
South wark."  Counting  the  Host  of  the  Tabard  Inn,  and  the 
Canon's  Yeoman,  who  joins  the  company  on  the  road,  and  the 
poet  himself,  there  are  thirty-two  pilgrims,  each  of  whom,  ac- 
cording to  the  plan  outlined  in  the  Prologue,  is  to  tell  four  tales : 
two  tales  on  the  journey  to  and  two  on  the  journey  from  Canter- 
bury. Only  twenty-three  Tales,  however,  are  completed,  —  un- 
less we  count  the  very  brief  fragment,  "  The  Rhyme  of  Sir 
Thopas."  The  pilgrims  include  the  Knight,  the  Squire,  the 
Yeoman,  the  Cook,  the  Miller,  the  Lawyer,  the  Doctor,  the 
Merchant,  the  Plowman,  the  Shipman,  several  ecclesiastical 
types,  and  many  others.  The  ecclesiastical  characters  are 
nearly  all  portrayed  with  much  of  satire,  because  of  their 
worldliness  and  gross  materialism,  though  the  town  Parson, 
brother  to  the  Plowman,  is  delineated  with  the  most  loving  and 
reverent  touch  of  all :  a  man  poor  in  the  goods  of  this  world,  but 
rich  in  holy  thought  and  work.  This  parson  and  the  scholar 
or  ''  Clerk  "  of  Oxford  and  the  Plowman  are  to  modern  readers 
the  most  attractive  of  all  of  these  figures,  though  the  author 
of  them  seemed  to  think  the  Wife  of  Bath  the  best  character 
he  had  drawn. 

The  tale  told  by  the  Nun's  Priest  has  charmed  more  people 
than  any  other  one  of  the  tales,  even  though  it  is  the  many 
times  told  mock-heroic  story  of  Chanticleer  and  the  Fox. 
The  tale  which  the  Wife  of  Bath  relates  is  little  more  than  a 
variation  of  Beauty  and  the  Beast;  though  somewhat  reversed 
in  details. 


MIDDLE-ENGLISH  LITERATURE  43 

The  first  story,  however,  had  been  told  by  the  Knight.  He 
was  asked  for  the  first  one,  as  was  fitting,  because  of  his  digni- 
fied position  in  the  society  of  that  day.  His  story,  as  we  should 
expect,  is  one  of  knighthood  and  the  rescue  of  fair  women  in 
distress.  Then  the  drunken  Miller  insists  that  it  is  his  turn, 
and  he  proceeds  to  relate  a  coarse  story  of  a  foolish  carpenter 
and  his  wife  and  various  other  distinctly  town  types.  It  is  a 
strong  story,  but  it  offends  the  Reeve,  who,  next,  in  his  story 
draws  a  portrait  of  a  big,  bullying  miller.  Chaucer,  when  his 
turn  arrives,  begins  with  a  rhyming  ballad  of  Sir  Thopas,  a 
parody  of  the  popular  "  gestes  "  of  the  time.  Its  cheap  jingles 
become  unbearable,  and  he  is  commanded  by  mine  Host  to  "  tell 
in  prose  somewhat  at  the  least  in  which  there  be  some  mirth  or 
some  doctrine."  Chaucer  chooses  then  to  tell  the  "  Tale  of 
Melibeus."  To  us  to-day  this  tale  is  more  dull  than  the  "  Sir 
Thopas."  Perhaps  Chaucer  wanted  to  illustrate  the  fact  that 
moralizing  prose  stories  are  sometimes  deadly  dull,  for  "  Sir 
Thopas  "  is  both  moralistic  in  purpose  and  highly  wearisome  in 
story  detail. 

The  Tales  taken  together  represent  the  wide  scope  of  the  life 
of  the  Middle  Ages  and  its  reflection  in  poetry ;  they  comprise 
"  the  legend  of  the  saint,  the  romance  of  the  knight,  the  wonder- 
ful fables  of  the  traveller,  the  coarse  tale  of  common  life,  the 
love  story,  the  allegory,  the  animal-fable,  and  the  satirical  lay." 
The  tales  are  merely  tales,  not  plot-stories,  not  dramatically 
relating  a  crisis  in  life.  Most  of  the  tales  are  old,  but  they  are 
told  "  with  a  new  and  English  beauty."  The  most  English  of 
them  are  those  told  by  the  Miller,  the  Reeve,  the  Cook,  the  Wife 
of  Bath,  the  Merchant,  the  Friar,  the  Nun's  Priest,  and  the 
Pardoner.  These  were  written  before  1390.  The  work  of  the 
last  ten  years  of  Chaucer's  life,  between  1390  and  1400,  shows 
a  decline  in  power. 


44  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

The  "  Father  "  of  EngUsh  poetry.  —  The  attitude  of  men  of 
letters  towards  Chaucer  has  been  one  of  ahnost  worship.  Ed- 
mund Clarence  Stedman  called  him  "  the  fount  of  English  pure," 
and  "  the  sire  of  minstrelsy."  Longfellow  wrote  of  him  as 
**  the  poet  of  the  dawn."    Drayton  described  him  as 

First  of  those  that  ever  brake 
Into  the  Muses'  treasure,  and  first  spake 
In  weighty  numbers. 

And  Tennyson  praised  him  as 

The  morning  star  of  song,  who  made 
His  music  heard  below. 

Dan  Chaucer,  the  first  warbler,  whose  sweet  breath 
Preluded  those  melodious  bursts  that  fill 

The  spacious  times  of  great  Elizabeth 
With  sounds  that  echo  still. 

3.    The  Fifteenth  Century 

Lydgate  and  others.  —  Between  Chaucer  and  the  middle  of 
the  reign  of  Henry  VII  there  is  little  writing  worthy  of  extended 
attention. 

John  Lydgate  in  1424-25  made  a  very  free  translation  from 
Boccaccio  and  called  it  the  Falls  of  Princes.  It  is  a  vivid  book 
in  its  plan,  making  the  "  mournful  dead  "  among  great  men 
and  women  from  Adam  to  King  John  of  France,  who  was  cap- 
tured by  the  Black  Prince  at  the  battle  of  Poitiers,  appear  be- 
fore the  pensive  Boccaccio  and  tell  of  their  defeated  lives.  This 
poem  is  an  important  one,  chiefly  because  it  influenced  eight  or 
more  poets  of  Elizabethan  days  to  supplement  it  in  their  Mir- 
ror for  Magistrates.  Many  ballads  were  popular  in  the  fifteenth 
century,  among  them  The  Nut  Brown  Maid  and  some  of  the 
Robin  Hood  ballads.  Scotland  had  some  poets,  among  them 
John  Barbour,  whose  lengthy  The  Bruce  had  been  published  in 


MIDDLE-ENGLISH  LITERATURE  45 

1375-77,  and  might,  we  should  think,  have  stimulated  a  kingly 
poet  living  at  that  time  to  more  patriotic  song-writing.  The 
Bruce  did  to  a  large  degree  become  the  fountain  head  of  Scottish 
national  spirit;  though  Scotland's  royal  poet  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  James  I,  could  do  little  more  than  imitate  in  a  love  song 
the  seven-lined  stanzas  of  Chaucer.  But  his  love  song,  called 
The  King's  Quair  (Book) ,  is  the  best  before  Spenser. 

Morte  d^ Arthur.  —  In  1450,  or  thereabouts,  came  an  invention 
of  greatest  importance,  the  invention  of  the  printing  press,  — 
in  the  city  of  Mayence,  on  the  continent.  Through  William 
Caxton,  who  had  for  a  time  lived  in  Belgium,  the  printing  press 
was  set  up  in  England.  Aside  from  two  or  three  editions  of  the 
Canterbury  Tales,  the  most  famous  book  which  we  know  to 
have  come  from  his  press  was  the  Morte  d' Arthur  of  Sir  Thomas 
Malory.  This  book  was  the  work  of  a  man  most  talented 
in  the  power  of  selecting  materials  from  multitudinous  French 
and  English  stories  concerning  the  mythical  British  King  Arthur 
and  his  court.  Yet  the  book,  after  all,  is  but  a  labyrinthine 
bundle  of  legends ;  and  perhaps  since  Mark  Twain's  arraign- 
ment of  it  in  A  Connecticut  Yankee  at  King  Arthur's  Court  we 
are  able  better  than  before  to  see  that  Malory  was  more  barren 
in  vocabulary,  more  lacking  in  humor,  and  weaker  in  the  power 
to  portray  character  than  has  often  been  said.  He  should  have 
studied  Chaucer  more  and  badly  written  legends  less.  Still,  by 
gathering  all  this  material  into  one  book  he  made  it  easier  for 
Tennyson  and  others  in  later  times  to  achieve  some  of  their 
successes  in  story-telling. 


QUESTIONS   AND   TOPICS   FOR  DISCUSSION 

1.  Name  the  principal  tribes  of  people  which  formed  the  inhabitants 
of  England  before  the  Norman  Conquest. 

2.  Into  what  parts  may  Anglo-Saxon  literature  be  divided? 


46  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

3.  Give  the  chief  points  of  interest  in  the  story  of  Beowulf. 

4.  How  many  Christian  epics  of  importance  were  written  during  the 
Anglo-Saxon  period?  Name  them,  and  tell  what  at  least  one  of  them  was 
about. 

5.  Name  the  chief  Anglo-Saxon  scholars.  Which  of  them  is  of  greatest 
interest  to  you  ? 

6.  Who  were  the  Normans,  and  what  share  did  they  have  in  the  making 
of  EngUsh  literature? 

7.  Why  was  Layamon  an  important  writer? 

8.  What  do  you  know  of  the  story  of  Gawain  and  the  Green  Knight? 

9.  Name  two  of  the  works  of  William  Langland. 

10.  For  what  was  Wycliffe  noted? 

11.  Name  one  of  the  works  of  John  Gower.     When  did  he  live? 

12.  (a)  In  what  century  did  Chaucer  live?     {b)  What  was  his  chief 
work?     (c)  What  did  that  work  aim  to  do? 

13.  Name  seven  of  the  principal  characters  in  Chaucer's  chief  work. 

14.  What  effect  did  Chaucer  have  upon  the  language  of  the  English? 

15.  What  do  you  know  of  the  work  of  John  Lydgate?    Of  Sir  Thomas 
Malory  ? 

16.  What  type  of  literature  was  most  prominent  during  the  Anglo-Saxon 
and  Middle-English  period  ? 


READING  LIST  FOR  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  AND  MIDDLE-ENGLISH 

PERIOD 

Beowulf.    Translated  into  modem  rhymes 

by  H.  M.  Lumsden. 
The   Anglo-Saxon   Chronicle.      Translated 
into  modem  English  by  James  Ingram. 
Old  English  Ballads.     Edited  by  Francis  B. 

Gummere. 
Gawain  and  the  Green  Knight.    Retold  in 
modern  prose  by  Jessie  L.  Weston. 
Chaucer,  The  Prologue,  Knight\s  Tale,  etc.     Edited 

by  Andrew  Ingraham. 
Sir  Thomas  Malory,  The  Book  of  Merlin,  The  Book  of  Balin, 

Edited  by  Clarence  G.  Child, 


MIDDLE-ENGLISH  LITERATURE  47 

HELPFUL  BOOKS  ON  THE  PERIOD 

The  History  of  Early  English  Literature,  Stopford  A.  Brooke.     (The  Mac- 

millan  Company.) 
The  Age  of  Alfred,  H.  J.  Snell.     (George  Bell  &  Sons.) 
English  Literature  —  Medicsval,  W.  B.  Ker.     (Henry  Holt  &  Co.) 
An  Introduction  to  English  Mediceval  Literature,  C.  S.  Baldwin.  *  (Longmans, 

Green  &  Co.) 
In  the  Days  of  Chaucer,  Tudor  Jenks.     (A.  S.  Barnes  &  Co.) 
An  Illustrated  History  of  English  Literature,  Vol.  I,  Garnett  &  Gosse.     (Gros- 

set  &  Dunlap.) 
The  Beginnings  of  English  Literature,  C.  M.  Lewis.     (Ginn  &  Co.) 
English  Literature  from  the  Norman  Conquest  to  Chaucer,  W.  H.  Schofield. 

(The  Macmillan  Company.) 
Fifteenth  Century  Prose  and  Verse,  A.  W.  Pollard.     In  the  series  of  volumes 

entitled  "An  English  Garner."     (Archibald  Constable  &  Co.,  Ltd.) 
See  also  Bibliography  on  The  Epic,  in  Chapter  IX,  page  358. 


CHAPTER  III 

RENAISSANCE  LITERATURE 

1500-1613 

I.  The  *'  Revival  of  Learning  " 

Meaning  of  the  word  "  Renaissance."  —  The  word  "  Renais- 
sance "  means,  literally,  a  new  birth.  With  a  little  less  degree 
of  literalness  it  has  come  to  mean  a  revival  of  anything  long  in 
decay  or  in  disuse.  As  applied  to  a  movement  in  history,  it 
means  the  movement  which  marks  the  transition  from  the 
medieval  to  the  modern  time,  a  movement  which  was  dis- 
tinguished for  both  a  revival  of  classical,  especially  ancient 
Greek,  learning,  and,  along  with  that  learning,  an  intense 
interest  in  all  art  and  literature.  This  historical  movement 
came  first  in  Italy,  as  early  as  the  fourteenth  century,  and 
reached  its  height  there*  in  the  last  years  of  the  fifteenth  century 
and  the  first  few  years  of  the  sixteenth.  After  the  taking  of 
Constantinople  by  the  Turks  in  1453,  a  great  number  of  Greek 
scholars  fled  westward  from  that  city  and  added  much  impetus 
to  the  renaissance  movement  all  over  western  Europe. 

General  features  of  the  beginning  of  the  Renaissance  in 
England.  —  It  was  not  until  the  sixteenth  century  that  the 
renaissance  movement  began  directly  and  strongly  to  influence 
England.  Chaucer  in  the  fourteenth  century  had  come  into 
contact  with  the  early  Renaissance  through  his  Italian  studies. 
Yet  he  was  not  so  much  interested  in  individual  details  of  life 
as  were  the  Italian  men  of  the  Renaissance.     While  Chaucer 

48 


RENAISSANCE  LITERATURE  49 

vividly  portrayed  individual  characters,  and  was  interested  to 
some  extent  in  the  importance  of  every  individual  incident,  and 
situation,  and  thing,  just  as  the  men  of  the  Renaissance  were, 
yet  he  seems  to  have  directed  his  attention  more  to  the  group 
than  to  the  individual,  for  his  characters  were  Knight,  Parson, 
Man-of-Law,  Priest,  Plowman,  Merchant,  and  the  like,  or 
representatives  of  types,  rather  than  individuals  with  "  given  " 
names. 

But  at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  Crusades 
were  over,  those  great  military  expeditions  from  the  nations 
of  Europe  made  to  the  Holy  Land  to  deliver  the  sepulcher  of 
Christ  from  the  hands  of  the  Turks.  All  that  the  Crusaders 
had  brought  back  of  new  thoughts  and  wider  visions  of  life 
from  the  East  was  being  absorbed  by  the  rest  of  the  people 
of  western  Europe.  Many  inventions  —  of  gunpowder,  of 
the  mariner's  compass,  of  the  printing  press  —  made  people 
come  together  in  larger  numbers  in  war,  made  sea  commerce 
more  safe,  and  made  more  rapid  the  spread  of  ideas.  The 
scholars  from  Constantinople  stimulated  Italy  first,  and  then 
through  Italy  stimulated  the  people  of  other  nations,  to  an 
interest  in  the  arts,  the  literature,  and  the  philosophy  of  ancient 
Greece  and  Rome,  and  in  the  quite  advanced  science  of  the 
Arabians.  Men  began  to  become  more  liberal  and  kindly  in 
their  attitude  and  thought  concerning  others,  and  the  art  of 
living  together,  which  is  civilization,  advanced  with  great 
strides.  England,  since  the  days  of  Edward  I,  who  reigned 
from  1272  to  1307,  had  been  a  well-unified  state.  And  under 
Henry  VII,  a  Welshman  of  the  Tudor  family  who  came  to  the 
throne  in  1485  after  the  overthrow  of  Richard  III  of  the  house 
of  York,  the  way  had  been  opened  for  the  union  of  Scotland 
with  England.  All  classes  of  people,  including  royalty  itself, 
became  subject  to  the  law  of  the  land,  and  hence  a  new  era  of 

E 


50  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

unified  interests  began.  Furthermore,  with  the  beginning  of 
the  sixteenth  century  the  voyages  of  Sebastian  Cabot  laid  the 
foundations  of  England's  colonial  empire.  The  thoughts  of 
men  began  to  widen,  and  became  ready  for  the  makers  of 
literature  to  lead  and  to  inspire  them. 

The  "Oxford  Reformers."  —  Now  about  this  time  many 
English  scholars,  eager  for  greater  learning,  went  from  Oxford 
University  to  Italy,  especially  to  the  fair  city  of  Florence. 
Among  these  scholars  was  one  named  John  Colet.  Colet  found 
in  Florence  a  great  awakening  of  mental  life  under  the  pressure 
and  inspiration  which  learned  Jews  and  Greeks  were  bringing 
from  farther  east.  He  found  there  also  a  rather  well-advanced 
movement  for  making  over,  or  re-forming,  the  Christian  Church 
and  its  beliefs.  John  Colet  came  back  to  England  inspired-  by 
both  the  new  learning  and  the  zeal  for  reform. 

A  fellow  worker  with  John  Colet  was  Thomas  More,  — 
gentle,  lovable,  happy  Thomas  More,  —  who  afterwards  became 
Sir  Thomas  More  and  Chancellor  to  the  crown.  Another  fellow 
worker  was  Erasmus,  who  had  been  a  student  in  the  University 
of  Paris,  France,  but  who  had  come  to  Oxford  University, 
England,  to  study  Greek,  because  he  was  too  poor  to  go  to 
Italy  to  do  so.  These  three  men  stood  foremost  in  learning  and 
culture  in  the  England  of  that  day,  the  time  of  Henry  VIII. 
There  were  also  many  other  wise  and  brilliant  and  hard-working 
scholarly  men  in  the  University  of  Oxford,  and  out  of  it,  too, 
who,  only  a  little  less  than  these  three,  were  a  part  of  the  new 
movement  towards  better  thinking  and  better  living. 

I.    To  Spenser 

When  Henry  VIII  came  to  the  throne  in  1509,  he  was  a  musi- 
cian, a  scholar,  a  good  business  man,  a  generous  and  open- 
hearted  character  in  almost  every  way,  whatever  in  his  later 


RENAISSANCE  -LITERATURE  51 

life  he  turned  out  to  be.  The  three  scholars  we  have  mentioned 
found  him  a  sympathetic  helper.  With  his  encouragement, 
Erasmus  wrote  a  book  entitled  The  Christian  Prince;  and  More 
wrote  one  which  he  called  Utopia.  The  Italian  historian  and 
political  thinker,  Machiavelli,  had  already  written  a  book  which 
is  still  very  noted,  under  the  title  of  The  Prince.  Machiavelli's 
book  was  written  at  a  time  when  Italy  was  seething  with 
political  turmoil  because  of  the  almost  uncontrolled  power  exer- 
cised by  warring  nobles.  Machiavelli,  therefore,  had  advocated 
unlimited  power  in  the  hands  of  one  man  as  Prince  of  the 
commonwealth,  who  would  bend  every  element  of  the  state 
to  the  working  out  of  his  superior  will.  But  Erasmus  and 
More  were  living  in  a  realm  in  which,  for  the  time,  at  least,  a 
fairer  condition  prevailed.  Erasmus  advocated  the  guiding  of 
a  ruler's  actions  by  the  Golden  Rule.  Sir  Thomas  More  urged 
a  similar  course,  asking  that  all  property  be  held  in  common  by 
the  people  as  a  whole,  and  that  the  election  of  all  priests  as  well 
as  all  magistrates  be  by  the  ballot  of  the  pjeople.  Colet  preached 
more  than  he  wrote,  but  along  with  Erasmus  and  More  under- 
took to  reform  the  theological  system  of  the  day,  the  scholastic 
system,  and  the  feudal  system  of  the  political  and  landowning 
caste. 

The  Religious  Reformation.  —  In  the  days  of  the  "  Oxford 
Reformers  "  there  was  occurring  upon  the  continent  of  Europe 
what  in  European  history  is  called  "  The  Reformation."  This 
movement  was  largely  under  the  leadership  of  Martin  Luther, 
a  Saxon  monk.  But,  just  as  the  EngUshmen  agreed  with  the 
Italian  Machiavelli  in  the  need  for  political  reform,  yet  differed 
with  him  in  the  manner  of  its  being  achieved,  so,  while  they 
agreed  with  Luther  in  the  chief  of  his  doctrines,  that  of  justifica- 
tion by  faith,  and  urged  with  him  that  true  worship  was  of  the 
heart  and  not  of  ceremonies,  yet  they  disagreed  with  many 


52  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

other  of  the  doctrines  which  Luther  had  derived  from  St. 
Augustine.  So  it  came  about  that  both  poUtical  and  religious 
reforms  took  a  different  course  from  that  followed  upon  the 
continent.  In  the  meantime,  for  all  Europe,  the  progress  of 
reform  was  complicated  by  the  fact  that  some  able  Italians, 
holding  as  strongly  as  Luther  or  the  Oxford  reformers  to  the 
doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  alone  and  aided  to  some 
degree  by  Pope  Paul  III,  attempted  to  make  over  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  from  within;  but  their  attempt  was  checked 
at  the  Council  of  Trent  in  1 545  by  the  new  and  powerful  society 
of  the  Jesuits.  However,  before  the  date  of  this  council, 
England,  as  early  as  1529,  had  broken  permanently  away  from 
the  Papal  control,  though  the  immediate  occasion  for  the  royal 
leadership  in  the  break  was  not  all  a  matter  of  religious  and 
ecclesiastical  conviction  and  poHcy ;  it  was  partly  personal  and 
secular.  All  of  these  things  were  the  beginnings  of  the  great 
wave  which  finally  broke  in  the  French  Revolution  of  1789. 

Tyndale's  Bible. — The  most  important  literary,  as  well  as 
religious,  event  of  the  last  years  of  Henry's  reign  was  one  that 
we  should  expect  to  come  from  the  current  turmoil.  We 
should  expect  it  as  the  result  of  the  endeavor  to  give  to  all  the 
people  privileges  which  had  hitherto  belonged  to  the  few.  This 
event  was  the  sanctioning,  in  1536,  of  the  use,  in  all  churches, 
of  the  translation  of  the  Scriptures  which  was  made  by  William 
Tyndale  and  revised  by  Miles  Coverdale.  Mr.  Arnold  Bennett 
has  said  that  the  secret  of  England's  greatness  lies  in  the  famil- 
iarity of  the  people  with  the  family  Bible.  It  had  been  Tyn- 
dale's ambition  to  see  that  the  Scriptures  in  English  should  be 
in  the  hands  of  even  every  English  plowboy.  And  he  very 
nearly  attaine'd  that  goal.  Furthermore,  his  translation  of  the 
New  Testament  was  made  in  1525  in  Antwerp,  and  because 
that  city  along  with  Bruges  was  the  center  of  the  commerce 


RENAISSANCE  LITERATURE  53 

of  Europe  in  that  century ,  it  circulated  from  there,  not  in  Eng- 
land alone,  but  also  very  widely  throughout  the  whole  continent 
of  Europe.  His  was  the  best  translation  since  that  of  ^Ifric, 
in  the  old  Anglo-Saxon  days.  It  was  the  best,  chiefly  because 
the  translator  tried  to  get  the  sense  of  the  passages  rather  than 
to  carry  over  literally  the  Hebrew  and  the  Greek  words  into 
their  dictionary  equivalents  in  English. 

Lyric  verse.  —  The  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century  was 
marked  by  a  revival  of  interest  in  lyric  verse  as  well  as  in 
political  and  religious  writings.  Sir  Thomas  Wyatt,  the  elder, 
was  a  writer  of  good  and  stirring  satirical  humor.  As  is  usually 
the  case  with  English  humor,  his  had  always  in  view  a  serious 
and  practical  end.  Tennyson  has  described  the  inner  spirit  of 
this  man  in  the  following  way : 

Courtier  of  many  courts,  —  he  loved  the  more 
His  own  grey  towers,  plain  life,  and  lettered  peace, 
To  read  and  rhyme  in  solitary  fields. 
The  lark  above,  the  nightingale  below 

And  answer  them  in  song. 

His  son,  also  Sir  Thomas  Wyatt,  wrote  many  fanciful  love 
songs,  as  did  H'enry  Howard,  the  Earl  of  Surrey.  The  "  Songs 
and  Sonnets  "  of  these  two  men,  Surrey  and  the  younger  Wyatt, 
were  published  in  1557,  along  with  many  other  similar  poems, 
in  a  collection  known  as  TotteVs  Miscellany,  by  a  man  named 
Richard  Tottel.  This  was  the  beginning  of  the  legion  of  poetic 
anthologies  in  English. 

Then  came  the  great  days  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  Lyric  poetry 
continued  in  the  work  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh, 
and  of  Edmund  Spenser,  as  well  as  scattered  itself  here  and  there 
among  the  dramatic  writings  of  the  time. 

Sidney  has  always  been  looked  back  to  as  the  ideal  of  the  age 
of  chivalry.    The  outward  events  of  his  life  and  the  inner  fineness 


54  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

of  his  character  gave  every  reason  for  the  charm  which  his 
character  and  Hfe  have  exerted  since  his  day.  Before  the  dram- 
atists of  the  day  began  their  greater  works,  Sidney  stood  as 
second  in  literary  fame  to  Spenser  alone.  His  Astrophel  and 
Stella  sonnets  rise  to  the  first  rank  among  sonnets  of  love.  Per- 
haps no  one  of  them  is  better  than  this,  — 

Stella,  think  not  that  I  by  verse  seek  fame, 

Who  seek,  who  hope,  who  love,  who  live  by  thee ; 

Thine  eyes  my  pride,  thy  hps  mine  history; 

If  thou  praise  not,  all  other  praise  is  shame. 

Nor  so  ambitious  am  I,  as  to  frame 

A  nest  for  my  yoimg  praise  in  laurel  tree : 

In  truth,  I  wish  not  there  should  be 

Graved  in  my  epitaph  a  Poet's  name. 

Nor,  if  I  would,  could  I  just  title  make. 

That  any  laud  thereof  to  me  should  grow, 

Without  my  plumes  from  others'  wings  I  take : 

For  nothing  from  my  wit  or  will  doth  flow. 

Since  all  my  words  thy  beauty  doth  indite, 

And  Love  doth  hold  my  hand,  and  makes  me  write. 

Stella,  the  "  star  "  of  his  love  life,  was  Penelope  Devereux, 
of  the  family  of  the  Earl  of  Essex,  and  the  word  "  Astrophel  '* 
is  a  Greek  combination  meaning  star-lover.  John  Richard 
Green  in  his  History  of  the  English  People  has  called  attention 
(in  the  very  famous  character  sketch  which  he  draws  of  Queen 
Elizabeth)  to  the  love  of  anagrams  in  that  day.  **  Astrophel  " 
is  an  illustration,  for  it  is  but  a  disguise  of  Sidney's  own  name. 
Philip  Sidney  was  changed  slightly  into  Philisides,  a  Greek-Latin 
coml^ination,  and  this  was  transformed  into  the  pure  Greek 
compound  which  means,  as  we  have  said,  star-lover.  Sidney 
was  the  author  of  much  excellent  prose.  His  prose  romance, 
Arcadia,  richly  poetical  in  its  imagery,  was  one  of  the  most 


RENAISSANCE  LITERATURE  55 

thoughtfully  witty  writings  of  the  time.  His  essay  entitled  a 
Defence  of  Poesy  is  used  to  this  day  in  the  schools,  at  times,  for 
the  same  purposes  as  a  textbook  is  used. 

Raleigh  wrote  poetry  well  enough  to  warrant  Spenser's 
calling  him  the  "  Summer's  Nightingale."  The  melancholy  of 
Raleigh's  tone,  no  doubt,  accounted  in  part  for  such  an  allusion. 
The  most  quoted  lines  from  Raleigh  are  these : 

Even  such  is  Time,  that  takes  on  trust 

Our  youth,  our  joys,  our  all  we  have, 
And  pays  us  but  with  age  and  dust ; 

Who,  in  the  dark  and  silent  grave, 
When  we  have  wandered  all  our  ways. 
Shuts  up  the  story  of  our  days. 
But  from  this  earth,  this  grave,  this  dust, 
The  Lord  will  raise  me  up,  I  trust. 

General  Literature.  —  Like  Sidney,  Raleigh  was  also  a 
writer  of  prose.  His  account  of  his  voyage  to  the  Orinoco, 
under  the  title  The  Discovery  of  the  Large,  Rich,  and  Beautiful 
Empire  of  Guiana,  is  available  still  in  popular  collections  and 
libraries;  but  his  History  of  the  World,  beginning  with  the 
Creation  (a  custom  among  early  historians  which  Washington 
Irving  finely  satirizes  in  his  Knickerbocker  History),  and  con- 
tinuing down  to  the  second  Macedonian  War,  B.C.  i68,  is  the 
first  strong  indication  of  the  enlargement  of  the  interest  of 
the  English  mind  in  matters  that  were  far  beyond  the  personal 
interests  of  the  Englishman  himself.  Raleigh's  own  unfortunate 
career  shadows  the  work  occasionally,  as  in  the  concluding 
magnificent  apostrophe : 

"Oh,  eloquent,  just,  and  mighty  Death !  whom  none  could  advise,  thou 
hast  persuaded ;  what  none  hath  dared,  thou  hast  done;  and  whom  all  the 
world  flattered,  thou  only  hast  cast  out  of  the  world,  and  despised;  thou 
hast  drawn  together  all  the  far-stretched  greatness,  all  the  pride,  cruelty, 


56  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

and  ambition  of  man,  and  covered  it  over  with  these  two  narrow  words  — 
Hie  JaceL" 

Much  popular  ballad  writing  was  done  at  this  time,  these 
Ballads  serving  the  purpose  of  the  newspaper  of  to-day  both  in 
giving  information  of  current  events  and  in  critical  comment 
upon  them.  There  was  much  writing  of  patriotic  poetry, 
notably  the  Ballad  of  Agincourt,  the  meter  of  which  Tennyson 
employed  in  The  Charge  of  the  Light  Brigade.  There  was  also 
some  satirical  poetry  of  worth,  especially  that  of  Donne,  about 
whom  Lowell  in  the  nine'teenth  century  became  so  enthusiastic, 
and  that  of  William  Drummond  of  Hawthornden.  Hobbes 
and  Locke  were  anticipated  in  their  thinking  upon  political 
science  by  Fulke  Greville,  Lord  Brooke.  Love  poets  were  very 
numerous.  Many  of  their  more  fantastic  productions  were 
collected  in  the  Paradise  of  Dainty  Devices,  published  in  1576, 
nine  years  after  TotteVs  Miscellany.  Translations  which  re- 
main as  among  the  best  ever  done  into  English  were  made  of 
Homer  by  George  Chapman,  of  the  Essays  of  Montaigne  by 
John  Florio,  of  Plutarch  by  Sir  Thomas  North,  of  Ariosto  and 
Tasso  by  Harrington  and  Fairfax,  respectively.  To  understand 
how  great  a  work  that  of  Chapman's  was,  one  need  only  read 
the  essay  by  James  Russell  Lowell  upon  Chapman,  and  the  ode 
by  John  Keats  entitled,  On  first  looking  into  Chapman^  s  Homer: 

Much  have  I  travell'd  in  the  realms  of  gold, 
And  many  goodly  states  and  kingdoms  seen; 
Round  many  western  islands  have  I  been 
Which  bards  in  fealty  to  Apollo  hold. 
Oft  of  one  wide  expanse  had  I  been  told 
That  deep-brow'd  Homer  rul'd  as  his  demesne; 
Yet  did  I  never  breathe  its  pure  serene 
Till  I  heard  Chapman  speak  out  loud  and  bold : 
Then  felt  I  like  some  watcher  of  the  skies 
When  a  new  planet  swims  into  his  ken; 


RENAISSANCE  LITERATURE  57 

Or  like  stout  Cortez  when  with  eagle  eyes 
He  star'd  at  the  Pacific  —  and  all  his  men 
Look'd  at  each  other  with  a  wild  surmise  — 
Silent,  upon  a  peak  in  Darien, 

Then  there  was  the  popular  theological  literature  represented 
by  John  Foxe's  Book  of  Martyrs,  bringing  literature  to  the 
very  hearts  and  minds  of  the  lowest  peasants ;  and  the  learned 
theological  literature,  such  as  the  book  which,  next  to  the  Bible, 
was  the  source  of  the  style  of  John  Ruskin,  namely,  Richard 
Hooker's  The  Laws  of  Ecclesiastical  Polity,  a  defense  of  the 
Church  against  the  Puritans  and  "  the  first  monument  of  splen- 
did literary  prose  that  we  possess."  History  was  represented 
by  Raphael  Holinshed,  in  his  Chronicles  of  England,  Scotland, 
and  Ireland,  published  in  1577,  and  furnishing  later  the  "  argu- 
ments," as  the  outlines  of  the  stories  were  called,  for  some  of 
the  "  histories  "  by  Shakespeare,  and  for  those  by  many  others 
before  him.  Love  stories  were  translated  into  English  prose 
by  the  score.  A  collection  made  in  1566  by  William  Painter, 
and  called  The  Palace  of  Pleasure,  was  sold  at  every  bookstall 
in  the  kingdom.  Tragic  poems  relating  the  misadventures  of 
famous  characters  were  printed  in  the  Mirror  for  Magistrates, 
on  the  model  furnished  by  Boccaccio  and  imitated  in  the  fifteenth 
century  by  Lydgate.  The  name  of  Thomas  Sackville,  who  was 
at  first  the  Earl  of  Dorset  and  later  Lord  Bockhurst,  is  the  chief 
one  to  associate  with  this  collection.  It  was  he,  too,  who, 
along  with  Thomas  Norton,  brought  forth  the  first  quite  serious 
attempt  at  tragedy  in  the  English  drama.  Their  play  was 
called  Gorboduc.  A  crude  affair  it  was,  both  in  the  bloodiness 
of  its  events  and  in  the  extravagance  of  its  style.  Nevertheless 
it  was  notable  even  in  style,  for  in  it  the  authors  marked  an 
epoch  by  the  employment  of  blank  verse,  for  centuries  after- 
wards accepted  as  the  best  form  for  the  expression  of  tragic 


58  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

emotion.  Interludes,  pageants,  and  to  some  extent  masques, 
with  still  other  forms  of  stage  plays,  were  almost  innumerable 
from  this  time  on. 

Bacon.  —  Then  there  were  the  Essays  of  Sir  Francis  Bacon, 
1597.  Bacon  was  a  scientist,  a  traveler,  a  philosopher,  a 
statesman,  and  a  man  of  letters.  He  was  also  a  good  speaker. 
Ben  Jonson  said  of  him :  "  He  was  full  of  gravity  in  his  speak- 
ing. No  man  ever  spake  more  neatly,  more  pressly,  more 
weightily,  or  suffered  less  emptiness,  less  idleness,  in  what  he 
uttered.  No  member  of  his  speech  but  consisted  of  his  own 
graces.  His  hearers  could  not  cough,  or  look  aside  from  him, 
without  loss.  He  commanded  where  he  spake;  and  had  his 
judges  angry  and  pleased  at  his  devotion.  No  man  had  their 
affections  more  in  his  power.  The  fear  of  every  man  that  heard 
him  was  lest  he  should  make  an  end." 

Bacon  once  wrote  that  he  had  taken  all  knowledge  as  his 
province,  that  he  desired  to  clear  the  field  of  knowledge  of  all 
frivolous  and  useless  theorizing  and  unscientific  experimentation, 
and  to  stimulate  invention.  It  was  a  large  and  a  difficult  task 
that  he  set  himself,  but  to  him  "  Difficulty  is  a  severe  instructor, 
set  over  us  by  the  supreme  ordinance  of  a  parental  guardian 
and  legislator,  who  knows  us  better  than  we  know  ourselves,  as 
he  loves  us  better,  too."  He  wanted  men  to  follow  definite 
inquiries,  and  make  direct  experiments.  The  kind  of  thing 
that  Benjamin  Franklin  did  later,  searching  after  hitherto  un- 
known causes  by  working  among  known  and  definite  effects, 
as  in  the  case  of  sending  up  kites  into  the  thunder-clouds,  was 
precisely  what  Bacon  approved ;  and  it  was  under  his  stimulus 
that  science  was  born  again.  Nature,  he  taught  men,  is  a  great 
quarry  in  which  men  should  employ  their  minds  as  tools  to  secure 
therefrom  truths  which  might  be  formed  into  the  things  that 
will  be  of  use  to  man.     This,  he  thought,  men  should  do  instead 


RENAISSANCE  LITERATURE  59 

of  doing  as  the  philosophers  so  often  did,  namely,  turning  their 
logical  wits  round  and  round  and  in  and  about  their  empty 
minds.  He  wrote  much,  both  in  Latin  and  in  English;  but 
it  is  his  essays  alone  that  have  been  widely  read.  They  are 
much  admired,  and  are  eminently  worthy  of  that  admiration. 
They  present  the  high  thinking  of  a  moralist,  a  statesman,  and 
a  man  of  general  affairs.  Bacon  was  born  about  three  years 
earlier  than  Shakespeare,  and  lived  ten  years  later.  In  in- 
tellect he  was,  we  think,  the  second  man  of  his  day,  Shakespeare 
alone  standing  superior  to  him. 

Euphuism.  — Two  books  by  John  Lyly,  Euphues,  the  Anat- 
omy of  Wit,  and  its  sequel,  Euphues  and  his  England,  are  in- 
dispensable to  one  who  wishes  to  study  the  manners  and  cus- 
toms of  the  Elizabethan  era.  Besides  social  manners,  love  and 
education  and  religion  were  topics  which  were  treated  in  these 
books  by  Lyly.  His  style  was  so  distinctive  that  a  name  has 
been  coined  to  describe  it,  —  "  Euphuism."  This  style  was 
characterized  by  balance  of  phrase,  which  indicated  contrasts 
of  thought,  by  alliteration,  which  marked  the  balanced  phrases 
over  against  each  other,  by  unending  fantastic  similes,  drawn 
largely  from  pseudo-science,  and  even  by  rhymed  prose.  The 
style  had  great  influence  upon  Lyly's  contemporaries  and  his 
immediate  successors.  Even  Shakespeare  falls  into  it  fre- 
quently, however  much  he  may  ridicule  it  through  the  mouth  of 
Holofernes,  the  pedant  in  Lovers  Labour^ s  Lost.  Furthermore, 
it  was  of  great  value  in  the  development  of  English  prose  style, 
because  of  the  effect  it  had  in  the  bringing  about  of  more  symme- 
try in  the  English  sentence,  though  it  was  badly  overdone  by 
Lyly  himself.  Lyly  owed  'much  of  his  form  and  its  embellish- 
ments to  Latin  writers,  especially  Cicero  and  the  elder  Pliny ; 
hence  the  well-balanced  phrases.  Sidney's  Arcadia  was  more 
free  in  style,  and  soon  supplanted  the  Euphues  in  favor. 


6o  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

II.  Edmund    Spenser 

His  importance.  —  "  The  Nobility  of  the  Spencers  has  been 
illustrated  and  enriched  by  the  trophies  of  Marlborough;  but 
I  exhort  them  to  consider  the  Faerie  Queen  as  the  most  precious 
jewel  of  their  coronet."  Thus  the  historian  Gibbon  spoke  of  the 
illustrious  family  of  Northamptonshire,  named  the  Spencers, 
and  of  the  principal  work  of  their  kinsman,  Edmund  Spenser. 

His  lesser  works.  —  The  first  publication  worthy  of  note 
from  the  pen  of  Spenser  was  the  Shepherd's  Calendar,  in  1579, 
a  poem  in  twelve  "  eclogues,"  one  for  each  month  of  the  year. 
It  is  an  artificial  thing,  as  any  eclogue,  or  poem  representing 
sophisticated  city  folk  under  the  guise  of  shepherds  or  of  any 
other  plain  country  folk,  is  sure  to  be.  It  is  artificial  also,  for  it 
is  written,  as  to  a  greater  or  less  degree  was  all  this  author's  work, 
according  to  a  theory  that  all  poetic  wording  acquires  some  of 
its  beauty  from  being  taken,  not  from  the  popular  speech  of  the 
time,  but  from  that  which  is  at  least  slightly  archaic  or  old. 
Then,  in  addition  to  this,  there  is  an  attempt  in  the  poem  to 
return  to  the  Old  English  alliterative  form.  Yet  the  poem  is 
genuine  in  its  feeling,  for  it  sprang  from  a  painfully  real  personal 
experience,  —  the  author's  falling  in  love  with  some  fair  lady 
with  whom  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  become  intimately 
friendly.  The  Shepherd's  Calendar  was  dedicated  to  Sir  Philip 
Sidney. 

Spenser's  Mother  Hubberd's  Tale  is  a  poem  of  1388  lines  in  the 
ten-syllable  rhyming  couplet  employed  by  Chaucer  in  the  Canter- 
bury Tales.  It  is  vigorous  and  vivacious.  The  Tale  is  a  fable, 
in  which  an  Ape  and  a  Fox,  meaning  imitation  and  cunning, 
tiring  of  earning  a  living  by  labor,  resolve  to  resort  to  their 
wits.  The  relation  of  the  adventures  which  follow  is  not  bitter 
or  malicious  in  tone,  as  satires  usually  are,  particularly  British 


RENAISSANCE  LITERATURE  6 1 

political  satires,  yet  in  the  keenness  of  the  arraignment  which 
is  made  of  the  military,  clerical,  and  courtly  vices  and  follies  of 
the  day,  it  is  unsurpassed.  The  poem  is  one  of  universal  im- 
port, for  impudent  pretense  is  the  same  in  all  times  and  places 
in  human  society  as  well  as  in  the  beastly  kingdom.  Evidence 
of  this  sameness  in  human  society  lies  in  the  fact  that  during  the 
reign  of  George  III,  one  year  af  t^r  the  close  of  the  Revolutionary 
War  in  America,  that  part  of  the  poem  which  dealt  with  the 
coaUtion  ministry  formed  by  Sir  Reynold  Fox  under  King  Ape, 
was  reprinted  and  dedicated  to  the  prime  minister,  the  Honorable 
Charles  James  Fox.  Perhaps  next  to  the  Faerie  Queen,  Mother 
Hubberd's  Tale  is  the  best  of  Spenser's  poems. 

Too  much  neglected  is  the  Fate  of  the  Butterfly.  Two  episodes 
in  this  poem,  the  one  relating  the  origin  of  the  unmatchable 
beauty  of  the  wings  of  the  butterfly  race,  and  the  other  explain- 
ing the  cause  of  the  poisonous  rancor  and  hate  which  the  spiders 
bear  to  the  butterflies,  are  extraordinarily  delicate,  glad- 
hearted,  and  lovely.     It  is  such  passages  as  these  that  make  of 

literature  a 

sweet  inn  from  care  and  wearisome  turmoil. 

Spenser's  next  important  poem  was  Colin  Cloufs  Come  Home 
Again,  1595.  This  poem  was  written  in  celebration  of  the 
author's  return  to  Ireland,  after  an  absence  of  some  time  in 
England,  and  it  gives  the  reason  for  his  making  the  journey  away 
from  the  fair  country  which  had  for  so  long  been  his  adopted 
home.  It  was  the  "  Shepherd  of  the  Ocean,"  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh,  the  poem  tells,  who  induced  the  land  shepherd,  Colin 
Clout,  to  make  the  journey  to  England,  in  order  that  his  talent 
for  poesy,  so  richly  enjoyed  by  Raleigh,  should  not  remain 
hidden -forever  in  the  obscurity  of  his  own  household.  So  he 
had  sailed  to  the  goodly  realm  of  the  great  Queen.  The  most 
interesting  parts  of  the  poem  are  two.     The  first  part,  which  is 


62  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

an  answer  to  the  question  who  else  besides  himself  gave  delight 
at  court  with  the  notes  of  their  musical  verse,  includes  a  de- 
scription of  various  poets  and  other  literary  men  then  living  in 
England,  among  them  Shakespeare, 

Whose  Muse,  full  of  high  thoughts*  invention, 
Doth  like  himself  heroically  sound. 

The  second  part  seems  to  renew  the  impassioned  devotion  of  the 
poet  to  his  early  love,  Rosahnd,  — 

Ah,  far  be  it  (quoth  Colin  Clout)  from  me, 

That  I  of  gentle  maids  should  ill  deserve : 

For  that  myself  I  do  profess  to  be 

Vassal  to  one,  whom  all  my  days  I  serve ; 

The  beam  of  beauty  sparkled  from  above, 

The  flower  of  virtue  and  pure  chastity, 

The  blossom  of  sweet  joy  and  perfect  love. 

The  pearl  of  peerless  grace  and  modesty : 

To  her  my  thoughts  I  daily  dedicate. 

To  her  my  heart  I  nightly  martyrize. 

To  her  my  love  I  lowly  do  prostrate, 

To  her  my  life  I  wholly  sacrifice : 

My  thought,  my  heart,  my  love,  my  life,  is  she. 

Astrophel,  an  elegy  upon  the  death  of  "  the  most  noble  and 
valorous  knight,  Sir  Philip  Sidney,"  was  included  in  the  same 
volume  with  Colin  Clout's  Come  Home  Again.  Another 
volume  in  the  same  year,  1595,  contained  the  eighty-eight 
Sonnets  entitled  Amoretti,  and  a  noble  Marriage  Ode  entitled 
Epithalamion. 

The  Prothalamion  was  printed  in  1596,  and  is  a  song  in  honor 
of  the  marriage  of  two  daughters  of  the  Earl  of  Worcester.  In 
this  year  also  came  the  four  hymns  in  celebration  of  Love  and 
Beauty,  two  written  as  if  the  author  were  in  the  rawness  of 
youth  and  two  in  maturity.     Then  four  short  "  Anacreontic  " 


RENAISSANCE  LITERATURE  63 

poems  and  four  sonnets  complete  the  list  of  his  poetic  output. 
After  his  death  there  appeared  a  prose  work  entitled  A  View  of 
the  State  of  Ireland,  dialogue-wise. 

In  January,  1598,  Spenser  died  in  London,  broken-hearted, 
impoverished,  if  not  starving,  because  of  personal  sorrows  and 
deprivations  arising  from  serious  insurrectionary  outbreaks,  in 
Ireland.  He  was  buried,  as  he  desired  and  deserved,  near  the 
tomb  of  Chaucer,  in  Westminster  Abbey. 

The  Faerie  Queen.  — 

A  Gentle  Knight  was  pricking  on  the  plain, 
Clad  in  mighty  arms  and  silver  shield, 
Wherein  old  dints  of  deep  wounds  did  remain, 
The  cruel  marks  of  many  a  bloody  field ; 
Yet  arms  till  that  time  did  he  never  wield : 
His  angry  steed  did  chide  his  foaming  bit, 
As  much  disdaining  to  the  curb  to  yield : 
Full  jolly  knight  he  seemed,  and  fair  did  sit, 
As  one  for  knightly  jousts  and  fierce  encounters  fit. 

A  lovely  Lady  rode  him  fair  beside, 
■  Upon  a  lowly  ass  more  white  than  snow ; 
Yet  she  much  whiter ;   but  the  same  did  hide 
Under  a  veil,  that  wimpled  was  full  low ; 
And  over  all  a  black  stole  she  did  throw ; 
As  one  that  inly  mourned,  so  was  she  sad. 
And  heavy  sat  upon  her  palfrey  slow ; 
Seemed  in  her  heart  some  hidden  care  she  had ; 
And  by  her  in  a  line  a  milk-white  lamb  she  lad. 
So  pure  and  innocent,  as  that  same  lamb. 
She  was  in  life  and  every  virtuous  lore ; 
And  by  descent  from  royal  lineage  came 
Of  ancient  kings  and  queens,  that  had  of  yore 
Their  sceptres  stretched  from  east  to  western  shore, 
And  all  the  world  in  their  subjection  held. 


64  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

Behind  her  far  away  a  Dwarf  did  lag, 
That  lazy  seemed,  in  being  ever  last, 
Or  wearied  with  bearing  of  her  bag 
Of  needments  at  his  back. 

Thus  begins,  almost  out  of  place,  out  of  time,  the  Faerie  Queefty 
a  poem  in  six  books,  each  book  containing  twelve  cantos.  As 
it  stands,  the  Faerie  Queen  is  more  than  three  times  the  length  of 
Paradise  Lost,  —  a  single  "  book  "  of  the  former  being  more  than 
half  the  entire  length  of  the  latter.  Had  Spenser  lived  to  carry- 
out  the  plan  which  he  contemplated  and  twelve  books  of  twelve 
cantos  each  been  written,  one  of  the  most  gigantic  undertakings 
in  the  whole  history  of  poetry  would  have  been  achieved  by  its 
author. 

Under  date  of  December  i,  1589,  in  the  registry  of  the  Sta- 
tioners' Company  at  London  there  is  this  entry,  — 

titgpodeti  into  2iM  Books 

.  An  edition  later  than  the  original  was  prefaced  by  Spenser 
with  the  dedication :  "  To  the  most  high,  mighty,  and  magnifi- 
cent Empress,  renowned  for  piety,  virtue,  and  all  gracious 
government,  Elizabeth,  by  the  grace  of  God,  Queen  of  Eng- 
land, France,  and  Ireland,  and  of  Virginia,  Defender  of  the 
Faith,  etc.  Her  most  humble  servant,  Edmund  Spenser,  doth 
in  all  humility  dedicate,  present,  and  consecrate  these  labours, 
to  live  with  the  eternity  of  her  fame." 

Each  of  the  six  books  which  were  completed  has  one  general 
subject,  one  hero,  and  one  heroine.  For  example,  the  subject 
of  the  first  book  is  Holiness ;  its  hero  is  the  Knight  of  the  Red 
Cross,  or  of  Holiness,  Saint  George;  and  its  heroine  is  the 
lovely,  pure,  and  heavenly  minded  lady,  Una.  Yet  each  book 
is  but  a  part  of  the  whole  poem ;  each  furnishes  illustration  of 


RENAISSANCE  LITERATURE  65 

one  great  virtue,  and  all  of  these  virtues  are  gradually  seen  to 
pertain  to  the  characters  of  but  the  two  who  are  the  hero  and  the 
heroine  of  the  poem  as  a  whole,  —  Prince  Arthur,  who  in  his 
entire  person  represents  Magnificence,  and  Gloriana,  the  Queen 
of  Fairy  Land,  who  in  her  person  represents  Glory.  The  books 
merge  into  one  another,  —  as  in  the  case  of  the  third  and  fourth, 
for  example,  which  treat  separately  of  Chastity  and  Friendship, 
and  yet,  taken  together,  become  a  treatment  of  Love.  Of  the 
virtues  represented  in  the  six  books,  that  in  the  first  is  Holiness, 
in  the  second  Temperance,  in  the  third  Chastity,  in  the  fourth 
Friendship,  in  the  fifth  Justice,  and  in  the  sixth  Courtesy. 

One  may  read  too  much  of  Spenser  at  one  time ;  the  richness 
of  the  sweet  rhymes  may  begin  to  cloy.  The  picture-making  or 
describing  power  of  Spenser's  imagination  was  stronger  than 
the  narrative  power  of  that  imagination.  Yet  according  to 
Milton  he  was  "  the  sage  and  serious  Spenser."  And  that  he 
was ;  for  while  in  this  extraordinary  and  beautiful  allegory  he 
reflects  the  characteristics  and  the  events  of  his  own  day,  yet 
the  reflecting  mirror  is  one  for  all  days.  For  example,  in  the  fifth 
book  he  describes  the  struggle  with  the  Giant,  who  is  none  other 
than  some  political  mountebank  whom  Spenser  himself  saw,  and 
yet  who  anticipates  the  theories  and  practices  of  many  a  twen- 
tieth-century demagogue.  In  fact,  in  this  book  Spenser  delin- 
eates characters,  one  after  another,  who  are  really  Raleigh, 
Sidney,  Cecil,  Philip  II,  and  Queen  Elizabeth;  and  yet  some 
men  and  women  of  any  later  day  might  be  described  in  almost 
identical  terms.  Spenser  wrote  from  his  own  time,  but  he  wrote 
for  all  time.  And  it  is  doubtful  whether  any  other  one  long  poem 
in  the  English  language  more  richly  rewards  its  study  than  his 
Faerie  Queen.  The  young  may  enjoy  it  for  its  wonderful  pic- 
tures of  the  age  of  Chivalry,  for  its  stirring  magic,  and  for  its 
enchanting  tales ;  and  the  mature  can  find  within  its  lines  the 

F 


66  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

image  of  their  own  very  souls.  Not  pictures  only  are  here ;  here, 
too,  may  be  found  those  things  which  ever  more  are  needed,  — 
faith,  energy,  courage,  devotion. 

The  poem  is  also  full  of  wise  saws,  such  as 
A  dram  of  sweet  is  worth  a  pound  of  sour, 

and 

What  needeth  me 
To  covet  more  than  I  have  cause  to  use? 

and 

Gather  therefore  the  rose  whilst  yet  is  prime. 

It  is  full  of  similes  as  perfect  as  those  of  Dante,  —  one  of 
them  is 

And  troubled  blood  through  his  pale  face  was  seen 
To  come  and  go,  with  tidings  from  the  heart, 
As  it  a  running  messenger  had  been. 

It  is  packed  with  earnest,  poignant  desire  for  the  good  of 

man, — 

God  help  the  man  so  wrapt  in  Error's  endless  train. 

In  this  poem  Spenser  wrote  of  Chaucer  as 

The  well  of  English  undefiled, 
On  Fame's  eternal  bead-roll  to  be  filed. 

There  is  no  poem  in  any  language  better  adapted  to  inculcate 
in  the  reader  the  sense  of  the  beautiful. 

III.  The  Drama  to  Shakespeare 

The  spirit  of  the  Renaissance.  —  While  in  the  spirit  of  Spenser 
there  was  a  vast  deal  of  sentimentality  surviving  from  medieval 
times,  yet  it  may  easily  be  seen  that  he  went  far  into  the  depths 
of  human  passion  and  human  moral  conduct.  But  it  was  not 
Spenser  who  among  English  men  of  letters  went  most  deeply  into 
the  recesses  of  man's  spirit.     It  was  the  Elizabethan  dramatists, 


RENAISSANCE  LITERATURE  67 

especially  Shakespeare  in  such  studies  as  those  he  made  of 
Lady  Macbeth,  Othello,  and  Cleopatra,  who  pushed  the  analysis 
of  the  soul  of  the  human  being  beyond  any  limits  reached  before 
or  since.  It  cannot  be  said  that  even  modern  scientific  psy- 
chology has  attained  the  power  of  insight  that  is  revealed  in 
the  tragedies  of  Shakespeare. 

The  Renaissance  brought  men  into  contact  with  the  great 
writings  of  the  past,  and  it  also  stimulated  writers  by  the  geo- 
graphical discoveries  that  were  contemporary  with  them. 
The  influence  of  past  writings  and  of  the  contemporary  enlarge- 
ment of  the  world  by  geographical  discovery  was  immense. 
But  England  during  the  Dark  Ages  had  not  suffered  so  deeply 
from  oppression  and  from  ignorance  as  had  the  nations  on  the 
continent.  Hence  the  new  ideas  of  the  Renaissance  did  not, 
despite  their  immense  influence,  sweep  Englishmen  quite  so 
fully  off  their  feet  as  they  did  men  in  Italy,  Germany,  Spain, 
and  even  France.  In  England  the  Renaissance  and  the  Prot- 
estant Reformation  of  the  sixteenth  century  went  hand  in  hand 
in  their  influence  upon  the  people.  Hence  in  the  myriad- 
minded  Shakespeare,  while  there  is  enough  and  to  spare  of 
renaissance  extravagance,  yet  there  is  also  again  and  again 
emphasis  upon  the  modern  idea  that  man  must  exert  his  high- 
est powers  through  his  own  character  if  he  desires  to  attain  sal- 
vation for  himself  and  for  others  both  here  and  hereafter. 

Love  of  the  beautiful,  freedom  of  thought,  straightforward 
directness,  many-sidedness,  and  "  modern-ness  "  of  viewpoint 
are  the  features  of  the  late  Renaissance  and  the  early  modern 
time  in  English  literature. 

An  analysis  of  the  literature  of  England  since  the  influence 
of  the  Italian  Renaissance  entered  into  its  stream  would  show 
that  influence  to  be  less  than  the  influence  of  the  ocean  voyages 
and  discoveries  of  the  period  of  Elizabeth.     The  great  gray  flood 


68  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

of  the  sea  has  permeated  with  its  flavor  and  its  tone  every  age 
of  art  in  England.  ''  Without  the  voyagers,"  it  has  been  said, 
"  Marlowe  is  inconceivable."  Without  the  writers  of  the 
stories  collected  by  Richard  Hakluyt  and  added  to  by  Samuel 
Purchas,  of  the  winning  of  the  world  by  the  adventurous  voy- 
agers, and  without  Marlowe,  too,  Shakespeare  is  inconceivable. 
The  effect  of  the  spirit  of  freedom  upon  the  language  of  these 
men  was  incalculably  great ;  hence  it  was  great  upon  the  lan- 
guage of  ourselves.  They  used  language  as  they  pleased ;  but 
fortunately  they  were  always  pleased  to  use  it  in  such  way  as 
would  most  efficiently  accomplish  the  conveying  of  what  they 
wished  to  convey.  It  has  even  been  said  that  these  men  were 
language  mad ;  but  if  they  were,  it  was  the  madness  of  genius, 
which,  as  Emerson  says,  is  simply  "  the  power  to  labor  better 
and  more  availably,"  for  their  language  does  what  they  in- 
tended it  to  do.  If,  like  Spenser,  they  preferred  archaic  English, 
they  employed  it.  (Ben  Jonson  said  of  Spenser  that  he  used 
no  language  at  all  !)  If,  like  the  schoolmasters  at  the  universi- 
ties (such  as  Sir  John  Cheke  and  Roger  Ascham  and  Nicholas 
Udall  who,  though  eminent  classical  scholars,  fought  for  "  our 
own  tongue,  clean,  pure,  unmixed,  and  unmangled  with  the 
borrowing  of  other  tongues"),  they  desired  to  use  the  current 
correct  English,  —  they  employed  it.  And  if  they  preferred 
to  spangle  their  pages  with  "  borrowings  "  from  the  Latin 
tongue,  as  Shakespeare  in 

When  the  extravagant  and  erring  spirit  hies  to  his  confine. 

they  took  and  used  what  they  preferred .  Wi th  this  language  they 
both  held  the  mirror  up  to  nature  for  themselves  and  for  us,  and 
provided  the  means  for  so  enlisting  our  attention  that  we  are 
taken  out  of  ourselves,  our  troubles  and  self-centered  interests, 
and  made  to  live  in  our  own  minds  the  lives  of  others. 


RENAISSANCE  LITERATURE  69 

The   earlier  antecedents  of  the    Shakespearean   drama.  — 

Shakespeare,  "  the  light  that  was  to  shine  over  many  lands," 
was  the  greatest  product  of  the  Renaissance.  But  before  we 
come  to  him,  if  we  would  understand  the  form  of  literature  with 
which  he  is  chiefly  associated,  that  is,  the  Drama,  we  should 
go  back  into  history  a  little  way. 

Of  the  three  great  epochs  in  dramatic  history,  the  Greek,  the 
Spanish,  and  the  English,  the  last  was  the  most  fruitful  in  varied 
types  and  the  richest  in  quantity.  All  drama  results  from  the 
play  impulse  which  exists  in  all  vital  things  and  from  the  fact 
that  men's  attention  is  most  readily  attracted  and  held  by 
action,  or  by  something  in  motion.  These  are  the  general 
psychological  sources  of  drama.  The  English  drama,  of 
course,  resulted  from  this  impulse  and  this  fact ;  but  more  di- 
rectly from  the  desire  of  the  priesthood  to  influence  the  common 
people  more  speedily  and  more  powerfully  than  in  religious 
matters  they  were  influencing  them.  They  thought  they  could 
do  this,  first,  by  opposing  the  influences  of  the  pagan  drama 
of  old  Greece  and  Rome,  and,  second,  by  impressing  the  peo- 
ple with  the  importance  of  the  Biblical  stories.  The  liturgy  of 
the  mass  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  already  existed  as  a 
public  performance.  It  was  a  ready  step  from  that  to  the 
acting  of  Biblical  stories  in  the  church  and  then  out  in  the  open 
air  upon  a  raised  platform  or  up  in  a  wagon  where  the  people 
could  see  the  acting  well.  A  Biblical  story  thus  acted  was 
called  a  mystery,  or  mystery  play.  It  had  to  do  with  the 
mysterious  doctrines  of  life,  death,  and  the  great  hereafter,  which 
were  associated  with  the  character  and  deeds  of  the  Scriptural 
personages.  The  Passion  Play  at  Ober-Ammergau  in  modern 
times  is  an  illustration  of  this  sort  of  dramatic  play. 

The  extension  of  the  subject  matter  to  include  the  legends 
connected  with  the  lives  of  the  saints  of  the  Church  brought 


70  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

the  miracle,  or  miracle  play,  into  vogue.  It  is  doubtful  if  the 
priests  and  the  people  of  that  day  distinguished  between  mystery 
and  miracle  in  this  way,  but  the  distinction  has  now  become  a 
convenient  one  to  mark  the  growing  change  in  subject  matter. 
No  doubt  the  miracle  plays  became  popular  with  the  priests 
themselves  because  of  some  hesitation  about  the  sacredness  of 
publicly  assuming  the  characters  of  the  Scriptures  as  they  had 
to  do  in  the  mysteries.  The  mysteries  were  not  allowed  to 
become  extinct,  however,  for  the  trade  guilds  took  them  up, 
both  for  amusement  and  for  money  making. 

For  the  sake  of  variety  and  of  subtlety,  too,  the  Biblical  and 
legendary  stories  were,  —  not  abandoned  altogether,  —  but 
less  and  less  used,  and  symbolical  characters,  some  of  which 
had  already  begun  to  be  used  in  the  mysteries  and  miracles, 
came  to  absorb  almost  the  whole  of  the  interest ;  and  thus  arose 
what  are  called  moralities,  or  moral  plays.  Everyman  is  the 
moral  play  best  known  to  the  public  of  to-day.  The  moralities 
were  allegories  intended  to  teach  men  to  live  better  lives,  the 
dramatic  conflict  in  them  being  between  the  good  and  the  bad 
in  typical  men.  The  religious  ideas  of  the  mystery  play  were 
now  merged  into  the  ideas  of  practical  morality. 

How  did  the  Shakespearean  play  derive  itself  from  all  this 
rather  remote  form  and  these  rather  direct  purposes  of  the 
mystery,  the  miracle,  and  the  morality  ?     In  this  way,  — 

MYSTERY 

I 

MIRACLE 

I 

MORALITY 

/  \ 

INTERLUDE  MORALITY-TRAGEDY 

I  I 

COMEDY  TRAGEDY 


RENAISSANCE  LITERATURE  7 1 

The  step  from  the  moraUty  to  true  drama  was  an  easy  one. 
Substitute  worldly  personages  for  the  allegorical  characters, 
and,  for  the  religious  or  moral  purpose,  substitute  any  motive 
that  might  rule  the  life  of  these  personages,  and  let  it  work  joy 
or  havoc  among  them,  let  it  proceed  by  comic  scenes  to  a  pleas- 
ant ending  or  through  tragic  scenes  to  a  fatal  and  terrible  end- 
ing, and  let  this  all  be  placed  before  the  spectator  clothed  in 
the  power  and  beauty  of  poetry,  and  there  exists  the  drama  of 
Marlowe  and  of  Shakespeare.  It  was  genius  alone  which  could 
so  clothe  these  personages,  their  motives,  and  their  actions; 
but  independence  of  thought  and  industry  could  provide  the 
material  for  this  poetic  expression. 

Some  intermediate  work  was  done  between  the  morality  and 
the  real  drama,  as  the  table  given  suggests.  We  know  that 
mysteries  were  performed  in  England  as  early  as  1119,  and  that 
moralities  had  become  very  popular  as  early  as  the  reign  of  the 
first  Tudor,  Henry  VII,  who  came  to  the  throne  in  1485.  Then 
during  the  reigns  of  Henry  VIII  and  of  Mary  it  came  to  be  the 
fashion  in  the  intervals  of  banquets  and  of  other  pastimes  to 
bring  forward  players  who  would  deliver  dialogue,  which  usually 
arose  from  some  comic  situation  and  revealed  the  nature  of 
certain  characters  by  their  grouping  and  by  the  contrasts  brought 
out  in  their  sayings.  This  was  a  pecuHarly  English  fashion, 
though  it  corresponded  somewhat  to  an  ancient  Latin  one  known 
as  Disputationes .  The  English  called  it  an  Interlude.  The 
best-known  writer  of  the  interlude  was  John  Heywood,  probably 
its  originator.  When  he  used  the  interlude  not  merely  for 
a  pastime  but  for  religious  satire,  he  was  exiled. 

Before  Heywood  there  had  already  existed  a  comic  element  in 
the  morality.  Even  in  the  mystery  and  in  the  miracle  play  the 
Devil  had  been  a  prominent  character,  and  with  him  had  come 
to  be  associated  a  constant  attendant  known  as  the  Vice.     In 


72  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

the  morality  the  Vice  became  very  much  a  buffoon.  Now, 
when  we  take  this  comic  element  represented  by  the  antics  and 
sayings  of  the  Vice  (later  the  "  fool  "),  and  when  we  take  also 
the  power  of  characterization  by  means  of  dialogue  alone  which 
Haywood  showed  in  the  interlude,  all  that  is  lacking  for  the 
production  of  a  comedy  is  the  construction  of  a  plot.  The  Latin 
models,  poor  as  they  were,  and  imitative  of  the  more  degenerate 
days  of  the  Greek  comedy,  nevertheless  furnished  the  sugges- 
tion for  plot;  and  before  1551  Nicholas  Udall,  head  master  of 
Eton,  wrote  Ralph  Roister  Doister,  bringing  the  grotesquerie  and 
the  allegorical  method  of  the  middle  ages  into  actual  life,  by 
taking  a  cowardly  and  vain-glorious  braggart  as  the  chief  char- 
acter, and  telling  the  story  of  his  courtship  and  rejection.  This 
is  usually  known  as  the  first  English  comedy. 

Comedy  came  before  tragedy,  for  two  reasons:  (i)  it  has  a 
quicker  appeal  to  a  wider  audience ;  and  (2)  the  fun-making 
scenes  in  the  moralities  were  really  foreign  to  the  underlying 
purpose  of  the  moralities,  and  could  be  easily  detached  and 
acted  alone.  Detaching  them,  stripping  them  of  their  merely 
allegorical  method,  and  forming  their  material  into  plot,  made 
the  comedy,  and  made  at  least  a  crude  one  very  easily. 

The  first  English  tragedy  we  have  already  mentioned.  It 
was  called  Gorboduc.  It  was  performed  at  Whitehall  before 
the  Queen,  in  1561.  As  the  comedy  sprang  in  England  from 
the  fun-making  scenes  of  the  moralities,  so  the  tragedy  was 
derived  from  the  seriously  sacred  parts  of  the  mysteries  and 
miracle  plays  and  from  the  sober  moral  idea  of  the  moralities. 
Not  the  recklessness  or  the  comic  enmeshments  of  life,  as  in 
the  comedy,  but  the  seriously  responsible  moments  of  life  make 
up  the  subject  matter  of  the  tragedy.  Tragedy  is  the  record  of  a 
fatal  event.  The  Chronicle  histories,  such  as  those  of  Raphael 
Holinshed  and  his  contemporary,  Edward  Hall,  were  filled 


RENAISSANCE  LITERATURE  73 

with  the  stories  of  the  great,  whose  downward  careers  Aristotle 
had  said  are  the  proper  material  for  tragedy,  and  whose  descent 
from  "  high  to  low  degree,"  Chaucer  had  also  said,  gave 
"  tragedie  "  its  content.  The  Latin  writer,  Seneca,  provided 
the  model  —  not  a  very  good  one,  as  we  have  already  said  —  for 
the  construction  of  dramatic  plot.  Surrey  and  Wyatt  had  made 
blank  verse  popular.  And  the  result  of  all  was  that  Gorboduc 
was  produced.  Its  authors  were  Norton,  the  eminent  lawyer, 
and  Sackville,  the  learned  courtier.  Sidney  in  his  Defence  of 
Poesy  praised  the  play  very  highly.  It  seems  extremely 
crude  to  us  to-day. 

Soon  a  second  tragedy  appeared,  —  The  Misfortunes  of  Arthur j 
by  Thomas  Hughes.  Dumb-shows  were  given  in  pantomime 
before  each  of  the  acts  of  this  and  other  tragedies,  in  order  to 
reveal  the  meaning  of  what  was  to  follow.  Francis  Bacon 
assisted  in  devising  the  dumb-shows  for  The  Misfortunes  of 
Arthur.  In  this  play  appears  "  The  Ghost,"  which  in  many  a 
later  and  greater  play  was  to  be  the  center  of  so  much  desperate 
mental  excitement. 

Between  1568  and  1580  "The  Minutes  of  the  Revels  "  re- 
cord fifty-two  plays,  some  of  which  must  have  been  both  artis- 
tic and  popular.  But  between  these  and  the  moralities,  as  our 
table  on  page  70  indicates,  there  was  an  intermediate  form  which 
was  hardly  either  morality  or  tragedy.  It  has  been  rather 
unhappily  called  a  "  hybrid  "  ;  perhaps  morality-tragedy  would 
be  a  better  name  for  it  and  is  the  one  we  use.  The  King  Johan 
by  an  author  named  Bale  is  a  representative  illustration.  It 
seems  to  have  been  the  first  attempt  to  dramatize  the  chronicle 
histories.  It  is  anticipatory,  therefore,  of  the  chronicle  plays  of 
Shakespeare.  It  has  the  same  purpose  as  the  morality,  but  the 
author  of  it  is  in  the  process  of  struggling  to  free  himself  from  the 
allegorical  method  and  to  write  as  if  representing  life  directly, 


74  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

Pageants  and  masques  were  common  forms  of  dramatic 
production  in  the  Tudor  days,  though  we  have  not  put  them 
into  the  above  table  because  they  were  not  essential  factors  in 
the  development  of  the  drama.  It  became  the  custom  for  the 
mystery  plays  to  be  played  in  parts  simultaneously  in  various 
quarters  of  a  city,  say,  the  city  of  York.  Each  part  was  played 
upon  a  separate  stage  which  was  drawn  about  the  city  from  gate 
to  high  cross,  to  hospital,  and  so  on.  The  vehicle,  wagon  or 
"  float,"  which  formed  the  stage  was  called  a  pageant.  Soon 
the  word  "  pagiante  "  came  to  be  applied  to  the  show  itself, 
and  then  to  a  whole  series  of  shows,  as  at  the  present  time. 
The  masque  was  imported  into  England  in  15 13  by  Henry  VIII. 
It  is  a  sort  of  halfway  house  from  the  pageant  to  the  play, 
more  Uke  a  modern  opera  than  any  other  thing,  consisting  of 
music  and  dancing  with  much  of  sung  and  declaimed  poetry, 
all  upon  a  magnificent  and  spectacular  scale  involving  elaborate 
machinery  and  highly  colored  scenic  effects.  A  small  army  of 
mechanics  and  actors  was  necessary  to  the  production  of  many 
of  these  masques ;  and  one  hundred  and  sixty  actors  were  em- 
ployed in  at  least  one  of  them.  Venetian  Carnivals  and  Mardi 
Gras  Processions  are  modern  survivals  of  the  medieval  masque. 
Shakespeare  used  it  in  the  masque  of  the  goddesses  in  The 
Tempest.  Other  dramatists  of  the  sixteenth  century  employed 
it,  notably  Ben  Jonson,  and  Milton's  noble  Comus  is  the  supreme 
example  of  its  literary  possibilities.  But,  after  all,  neither 
pageant  nor  masque  was  essentially  fundamental,  but  only 
incidental  in  the  evolution  of  the  drama. 

We  have  mentioned  Bale's  King  Johan  as  possibly  the  first 
of  the  chronicle  plays,  sometimes  called  historical  plays.  There 
were  many  of  these.  Shakespeare  for  his  material  used  a 
number  of  early  ones,  such  as  The  Troublesome  Raigne  of  King 
John,  whose  author  is  unknown.     These  early  historical  plays 


RENAISSANCE  LITERATURE  75 

were  strong,  but  crude;  none  was  really  excellent  until  the 
Edward  II  of  Marlowe,  probably  written  about  1590,  Histori- 
cal plays  were  useful,  as  Hey  wood  said  in  his  Apology  for 
Actors,  for  the  instruction  of  the  ignorant  and  for  the  refreshing 
of  the  memory  of  the  learned  as  to  the  important  facts  of  history 
and  of  morals.  The  historical  plays  in  English  literature  form 
an  almost  unbroken  series  of  studies  from  the  accession  of  John 
to  the  defeat  of  the  Spanish  Armada,  11 99  to  1588. 

Biographical  plays,  such  as  ^^V  Thomas  More,  Perkin  War- 
beck,  and  The  Fair  Maid  of  the  West,  and  plays  centering  about 
the  famous  gentleman  called  Robin  Hood,  were  a  logical  accom- 
paniment of  the  dramatizing  of  the  events  of  the  reign  of  an 
English  king,  —  logical  because  it  is  but  a  step  from  the  chief 
events  of  a  reign  to  the  chief  events  in  the  life  of  a  man.  Then  a 
next  logical  step  is  from  leading  events  in  lives  of  popular  heroes 
to  such  important  events  in  the  lifetime  of  the  author  as  he 
sees  in'society  about  him.  Most  early  plays  of  this  last  kind 
that  were  of  any  consequence  were  tales  of  horrible  tragedies. 
Arden  0]  Feversham  is  one  of  the  few  of  these  brutal  tales  which 
had  real  tragic  power  in  them.  It  is  *'  The  lamentable  and  true 
tragedy  of  Master  Arden  of  Feversham,  in  Kent,  who  was 
most  wickedly  murdered  by  the  means  of  his  disloyal  and 
wanton  wife,  who,  for  the  love  she  bore  to  one  Mosbie,  hired 
two  desperate  ruffians.  Black  Will  and  Shagbag,  to  kill  him." 
The  play  has  been  thought  by  some  to  have  been  written  by 
Shakespeare.  There  do  appear  to  be  some  glimmerings  of  his 
mind  here  and  there  within  it. 

Shakespeare's  immediate  predecessors.  — This  brings  us,  if 
not  to  Shakespeare,  to  his  immediate  predecessors.  They  were 
Kyd,  Lyly,  Greene,  Peele,  Nash,  Lodge,  and  Marlowe.  The 
student  who  desires  to  establish  in  his  mind  a  sense  of  the  real 
existence  of  these  men  should  read  Tales  of  the  Mermaid  Inn, 


76  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

by  Alfred  Noyes.  The  rhymed  stories  in  this  book  are  very 
interesting,  both  because  of  the  fascinating  nature  of  nearly  all 
their  incidents,  and,  more  especially,  because  those  contem- 
poraries of  the  youth  of  Shakespeare  are  as  much  alive  in  them 
as  if  they  were  to  be  seen  by  us  any  day  on  our  streets  and  in  the 
active  life  of  amusement  and  work  about  us. 

Thomas  Kyd  made  popular  the  "  tragedy  of  blood,"  his 
Spanish  Tragedy  hitting  the  curious  taste  of  the  time  with  five 
murders,  two  suicides,  two  legal  executions,  and  one  death  by 
duel.  John  Lyly's  plays  are  inferior  in  value  to  his  novels, 
though  filled  with  lovely  lyrics.  Next  to  Christopher  Marlowe, 
Robert  Greene  was  the  most  brilliant  of  these  men,  but  went  to 
a  wretched  and  embittered  death,  unsuccessful  because  he  was 
unwilling  to  conform  to  the  prevalent  demand  for  blank  verse 
such  as  was  used  by  Marlowe  and  Nash.  His  most  celebrated 
play,  Looking-Glass  for  London,  was  written  in  collaboration 
with  Thomas  Lodge,  the  scholarly  actor-physician.  George 
Peele  is  known  chiefly  for  The  Arraignment  of  Paris  and  for 
The  Old  Wives^  Tales.  The  latter  is  thought  by  many  to  have 
been  the  source  for  Milton's  Comus;  it  is  as  likely  to  be 
remembered  by  us  because  of  the  similarity  of  the  title  to  that 
of  one  of  the  novels  of  Arnold  Bennett.  Ingenious,  fluent, 
facetious  Thomas  Nash  produced,  among  other  things.  Will 
Summer^s  Testament,  and  perhaps  collaborated  with  Marlowe 
in  at  least  one  play. 

Christopher  Marlowe,  better  known  as  Kit  Marlowe,  was 
born  in  the  same  year  with  Shakespeare,  1564,  at  Canterbury. 
He  had  a  creative,  an  original  mind.  The  state  of  the  drama 
was  becoming  precarious  in  the  days  of  his  youth.  The  Puri- 
tans hated  any  sort  of  amusement.  The  populace  wanted  only 
grotesque  buffoonery  or  bloody  melodrama;  the  university 
scholars  would  have  nothing  but  imitations  of  the  ancient 


RENAISSANCE  LITERATURE  77 

authors.  Marlowe  himself  put  the  matter  very  mildly  in  his 
preface  to  Tamburlaine  when  he  said  that  he  proposed  to  win 
the  people 

From  jigging  veins  of  rhyming  mother  wits, 
And  such  conceits  as  clownage  keeps  in  pay. 

At  the  age  of  twenty-two  Marlowe  made  himself  famous  and 
made  certain  the  success  of  the  type  of  writing  which  a  greater 
than  he  was  soon  to  bring  to  relative  perfection.  Marlowe 
attained  this  distinction  with  the  drama  of  Tamburlaine.  This 
was  the  beginning  of  the  great  Romantic  drama  production  of 
the  Elizabethan  age.  It  is  a  play  with  a  hero,  the  Scythian 
shepherd-warrior  usually  known  in  history  as  Tamerlane. 
The  character  of  Tamburlaine  is  of  the  earth,  and  yet  never  lets 
one  forget  that  it  is  nearly  divine  in  its  capacities  and  power. 
The  action  of  the  story  proceeds  through  a  series  of  triumphs, 
marking  crises  in  the  life  of  the  hero.  The  poetry  of  the  play 
shows  a  genius  unparalleled  in  its  time  except  by  one.  That 
poetry  was  not  dependent  upon  rhyme ;  it  lay  in  the  thought 
of  the  play  and  in  the  powerful  surge  of  its  movement.  From 
this  hour  drama  in  England  was  no  longer  chaotic.  All  drama- 
tists now  knew  three  things :  (i)  what  sort  of  material  would 
bring  dramatic  effect,  (2)  how  the  play  should  be  constructed, 
and  (3)  that  unrhymed  verse  was  the  most  natural  form  in  which 
to  express  the  emotional  flow  of  the  speech  of  dramatic  char- 
acters. Tamburlaine  was  followed  within  six  years  by  Dr. 
F-austuSj  famous  enough  for  the  lines : 

Was  this  the  face  that  launched  a  thousand  ships 
And  burnt  the  topless  towers  of  Ilion  ? 

exclaimed  by  Faustus  when  Mephistopheles  raised  Ihe  spirit  of 
Helen  of  Troy.  The  Massacre  at  Paris,  The  Jew  of  Malta,  and 
Edward  II,  all  were  powerful  plays,  but  over-grandiloquent  in 


78  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

speech,  as  we  should  expect  from  a  man  of  genius  still  under 
twenty-nine  years  of  age.  Marlowe  never  reached  maturity, 
but  died  at  twenty-nine.  The  maker  of  "  Marlowe's  mighty 
line  "  will  always  be  remembered  both  for  what  he  did  and  for 
what  he  made  possible. 

Lo,  where  Christ's  blood  streams  in  the  firmament ! 
is  the  cry  with  which  Faustus  starts  up  from  his  deathbed. 
After  such  a  line  from  one  who  in  a  time  of  literary  progress 
was  still  rather  -undeveloped,  there  may  be  expected  great  poetry 
to  follow. 

It  came  in  "  that  divine  apparition  known  to  mortals  as 
Shakespeare." 

IV.  William  Shakespeare 

The  man.  —  Shakespeare  was  a  busy,  brilliant,  much-alive 
man.  This  we  know  from  his  writings.  He  was  also  the  most 
profound  genius  of  the  race,  so  far  as  the  understanding  of  human 
nature  goes.  This  we  know  from  comparison  of  his  writings  with 
those  of  others  who  have  recorded  their  thinking  upon  the  human 
heart  and  intellect.  His  mind  was  a  full  and  teeming  mind,  — 
a  joyous  mind  in  the  main.  He  was  an  artist  in  insight,  in  skill, 
in  sympathy;  a  great  artist  in  power  and  achievement.  All 
this  we  know  from  his  writings. 

We  know  nothing  else  about  him  which  is  of  very  great  im- 
portance. He  was  born  at  Stratford-on-Avon  in  1564,  and  died 
there  in  1616.  The  house  in  which  he  was  born  still  stands,  well- 
preserved,  —  by  several  repairings,  however,  and  not  because 
,time  has  spared  it.  His  tomb  is  in  the  little  church  by  the 
streamside,  where  the  only  authentic  likeness  of  him  may  be 
seen.  American  lovers  of  the  drama  have  erected  an  imposing 
but  ugly  theater  building  in  the  small  city  in  memory  of  the 
great  playwright.     Shakespeare  was  married  to  an  Anne  or 


RENAISSANCE  LITERATURE  79 

Agnes  Hathaway.  The  Hathaway  house,  with  thatched  roof 
and  many  sixteenth-century  architectural  features  and  much 
furniture  of  the  period,  charms  the  visitor  at  Shottery,  a 
near-by  village.  Two  daughters  and  one  son  were  born  to  the 
Shakespeares. 

Shakespeare  became  an  actor  in  London.  He  worked  over 
the  plays  of  other  men  and  improved  them.  He  wrote  much 
poetry  of  high  quality.  John  Webster,  a  contemporary  of  his 
later  years,  wrote  of  him  that  he  was  a  man  of  "  right  happy  and 
copious  industry."  It  is  quite  certain  that  he  was  an  honest, 
shrewd,  painstaking  man  of  business,  and  that  he  became 
wealthy  from  work  and  investments. 

Everything  else  told  of  him  is  more  or  less  legendary. 

The  picture  at  the  beginning  of  this  volume  represents  what 
he  looked  like,  we  believe,  as  the  engraving  from  which  it  is 
copied  was  made  by  Martin  Droeshout,  who  was  fifteen  years 
of  age  at  the  time  of  Shakespeare's  death. 

His  theater.  —  The  theaters  in  which  Shakespeare  acted 
and  which  he  partly  owned  were  very  crude  affairs.  The  acting, 
though,  was  probably  good.  Much  of  the  acting  was  done  by 
boys,  the  women's  parts  being  always  taken  by  boys.  *'  Nearly 
all  boys  can  act  extremely  well,"  says  Mr.  John  Masefield,  the 
playwright.  "  Very  few  men  and  women  can."  No  doubt  a 
good  deal  of  the  wholesomeness  and  freshness  of  the  plays 
of  Shakespeare  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  author  had  to  write 
for  such  actors ;  for,  as  he  tells  us,  the  dyer's  hand  is  colored  by 
that  wherein  it  works.  The  elaborate  stage  settings  of  to-day 
were  unknown  to  the  Elizabethans,  though  the  masques  came 
near  to  some  of  them  in  gorgeousness.  Stirring  action  and 
sparkling  or  resounding  speech  were  the  things  that  appealed 
to  the  audience  of  that  day ;  not  a  complicated  social  tableau 
nor  a  striking  personal  situation.     Splendid  costumes,  however, 


8o  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

and  lovely  music  and  singing  were  employed  and  enthusiasti- 
cally welcomed. 

The  playwrights  of  the  Elizabethan  days  would  have  been 
astonished  at  the  modern  pretense  at  realism.  Their  business, 
they  thought,  was  to  produce  illusion ;  yet  to  produce  illusion 
in  order  that  real  life  might  be  better  known ;  and  it  is  a  curious 
fact  that  in  The  Tempest,  The  Winter's  Tale,  Troilus  and 
Cressida,  Cymbeline,  and  Pericles,  and  in  such  passages  as  Act 
IV,  scene  3  of  ^5  You  Like  It,  and  Act  V  of  The  Merchant  of 
Venice,  all  called  by  everybody  *'  romantic,"  Shakespeare  not 
only  wrote  to  please  himself  chiefly,  but  came  closest  of  all  to 
presenting  a  true  vision  of  life  as  it  actually  goes  on.  George 
Bernard  Shaw  says  that  "  life  as  it  occurs  is  senseless."  That 
would  seem  true  in  books  if  life  were  pictured  out  in  all  the 
fullness  of  detail  which  the  photographer  can  secure.  But  when 
"  visioned,"  that  is,  when  given  in  such  form  that  we  see  both 
its  essential  details  and  their  meaning  in  detail  and  as  a  whole,  it 
is  not  senseless.  Shakespeare  reproduces  life  in  this  visioned 
manner  in  these  '*  Romances  "  and  romantic  passages.  Life  is 
neither  so  tense,  nor  so  concentrated,  nor  so  idealized  in  details 
in  these  plays  as  in  the  Tragedies  and  the  Comedies.  The 
Romances  —  though  in  Pericles  and  Cymbeline  Shakespeare  did 
little  more  than  sketch  out  the  scenarios — are  the  most  reflective 
of  the  real  Shakespeare  of  all  his  plays.  The  theory  of  his  word 
as  he  thought  it  out  is  best  worked  out  in  them,  the  theory  itself 
being  set  forth  in  these  lines  from  Act  I  of  Timon  oj  Athens ^  — 
# 

My  free  drift 

Halts  not  particularly,  but  moves  itself 

In  a  wide  sea  of  wax :  no  levell'd  malice 

Infects  one  comma  in  the  course  I  hold ; 

But  flies  an  eagle  flight,  bold,  and  forth  on, 

Leaving  no  tract  behind. 


RENAISSANCE  LITERATURE 


8l 


His  plays.  —  Shakespeare  wrote  or  had  a  hand  in  the  writing 
of  at  least  thirty-seven  plays,  the  mixed  authorship  being  most 
evident  in  Cymbeline,  Pericles,  and  The  Famous  History  of  the 
Life  of  King  Henry  VIII.    These  are  the  thirty-seven  plays : 


Love's  Labour's  Lost 

The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona 

The  Comedy  of  Errors 

Titus  Andronicus 

King  Henry  VI,  Part  I 

King  Henry  VI,  Part  II  ■ 

King  Henry  VI,  Part  III 

A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream 

Romeo  and  Juliet 

King  John 

King  Richard  II 

King  Richard  III 

The  Merchant  of  Venice 

The  Taming  of  the  Shrew 

King  Henry  IV,  Part  I 

King  Henry  IV,  Part  II 

King  Henry  V 

The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor 

As  You  Like  It 


Much  Ado  About  Nothing 

Twelfth  Night 

All's  Well  that  Ends  Well 

Julius  CcBsar 

Hamlet,  Prince  of  Denmark 

Troilus  and  Cressida 

Measure  for  Measure 

Othello,  the  Moor  of  Venice 

King  Lear 

Macbeth 

Antony  and  Cleopatra 

Coriolanus 

Timon  of  Athens 

Pericles,  Prince  of  Tyre 

Cymbeline 

The  Winter's  Tale 

The  Tempest 

King  Henry  VIII 


This  order  is,  as  nearly  as  can  be  ascertained,  the  order  in 
which  the  plays  were  written,  though  there  is  a  great  deal  of 
difference  of  opinion  concerning  the  order.  In  fact,  it  is  all 
very  much  a  matter  of  guesswork.  We  know  that  the  first 
part  of  King  Henry  VI  was  played  in  1591  and  that,  therefore, 
it  must  have  been  written  before  that  date.  We  know  that 
Shakespeare  died  in  161 6,  and  that,  therefore,  if  he  had  any  share 
in  the  writing  of  King  Henry  VIII,  or  any  other  play,  it  must 
have  been  before  that  time.  We  know  that  nothing  was  known 
in  Europe  about  the  Bermuda  Islands  (mentioned  in  The 
Tempest)  before  1609,  and  that,  therefore,  Shakespeare  could  not 

G 


82  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

have  written  The  Tempest  before  that  date.  But  to  determine 
the  dates  of  the  plays,  as  is  often  attempted,  by  the  moods  of  the 
man  at  certain  ages  in  his  life,  gets  us  nowhere ;  for  it  is  generally 
acknowledged  that  the  plays  were  all  written  between  1589  and 
1613,  and  it  is  quite  possible  for  a  man  to  have  many  very  similar 
moods  between  the  ages  of  25  and  50.  The  important  thing 
about  them  is  not  their  dates,  but  that  nothing  in  literature 
has  come  from  an  Anglo-Saxon  mind  so  great  as  these  dramas. 
From  the  hour  of  their  production  until  now  they  have  been 
the  world's  greatest  treasure  house  both  of  entertainment  and 
of  wisdom,  —  and,  together  with  the  Bible,  of  inspiration. 

Many  other  plays  are  asserted  to  have  come  from  the  hand 
of  this  author,  among  them  Cardenna,  Edward  Illy  Arden 
of  Fever  sham  f  The  Two  Noble  Kinsmen,  and  some  scenes  added 
in  1602  to  Thomas  Kyd's  The  Spanish  Tragedy.  There  seems 
little  ground  for  doubt  that  he  had  a  hand  in  the  writing  of  The 
Two  Noble  Kinsmen;  but  there  are  good  reasons  for  doubting 
that  he  had  anything  to  do  with  the  others,  the  best  of  all  of 
these  reasons  being  that  these  plays  do  not  sound  like  anything 
else  we  know  him  to  have  done. 

The  plays  may  be  grouped  into  Comedies,  Chronicle  Plays, 
Tragedies,  and  Romances. 

The  Comedies  are  twelve  in  number,  — 

Love's  Labour's  Lost  The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor 

The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona  As  You  Like  It 

The  Comedy  of  Errors  Much  Ado  About  Nothing 

A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream  Twelfth  Night 

The  Merchant  of  Venice  All's  Well  that  Ends  WeU 

The  Taming  of  the  Shrew  Measure  for  Measure 

The  Chronicle  Plays,  ten,— 

King  Henry  VI,  Part  f  King  Henry  VI,  Part  III 

King  Henry  VI,  Part  II  King  John 


RENAISSANCE  LITERATURE  83 

King  Richard  II  King  Henry  IV,  Part  II 

King  Richard  III  King  Henry  V 

King  Henry  IV,  Pari  I  King  Henry  VIII 

The  Tragedies,  ten, — 

Titus  Andronicus  King  Lear 

Romeo  and  Juliet  Macbeth 

Julius  CcBsar  Antony  and  Cleopatra 

Hamlet,  Prince  of  Denmark  Coriolanus 

Othello,  the  Moor  of  Venice  Timon  of  Athens 

The  Romances,  five, — 

Troilus  and  Cressida  The  Winters  Tale 

Pericles,  Prince  of  Tyre  The  Tempest 

Cymbeline 

The  order  of  writing  the  groups  was,  in  general,  probably 
this :  Comedies,  Chronicle  Plays,  Tragedies,  Romances.  There 
are  exceptions  to  this  probable  order,  in  each  group ;  for  Troilus 
and  Cressida,  a  romance,  was  written  before  at  least  six  of  the 
tragedies ;  Measure  for  Measure,  a  comedy,  was  written  after 
some  of  the  tragedies,  and  after  all  the  chronicle  plays  excepting 
one;  Titus  Andronicus  and  Romeo  and  Juliet,  tragedies,  were 
written  before  most  of  all  the  plays  in  all  the  groups ;  Henry 
VIII,  a  chronicle  play,  was  written  last  of  all.  At  least  this 
is  as  near  as  the  dates  can  be  ascertained.  Yet  for  most  of 
the  plays  the  statement  stands  true,  that  their  author  began  with 
comedies,  turned  next  to  serious  history,  then  to  tragedy,  and 
last  of  all,  in  the  romances,  wrote  chiefly  to  please  himself.  In 
spite  of  what  we  have  said  concerning  the  variety  of  moods  a 
man's  mind  may  have  in  a  short  period  of  time,  we  should  expect 
this  distribution  of  the  plays,  because  it  is  the  most  likely  thing 
that  a  man  should  earliest  be  interested  in  the  lighter  aspects 
of  life ;  then,  particularly  in  the  England  of  that  time,  next  be 
attracted  and  held  by  the  dominant  interest  of  the  time,  Eng- 


84  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

land's  history,  —  the  man  would  have  become  patriot  chiefly ; 
next  we  should  expect  that  absorption  in  history  should  bring 
about  the  accentuation  of  its  great  characters,  at  home  and 
abroad,  together  with  a  search  for  typical  characters  and 
broadly  general  affairs  of  mankind,  and  a  brooding  over  the 
great  tragic  aspects  of  the  life  of  man ;  and,  lastly,  we  should 
expect  the  man,  when  ripe  in  wisdom,  to  reap  from  these  both 
real  and  apparent  tragic  phases  of  human  existence,  a  setting 
forth  of  his  philosophy  of  man's  destiny  in  more  resigned  if 
not  more  genial  terms  than  ever  before.  This  is  precisely 
what  we  do  find  to  have  been  the  course  of  the  mind  of 
Shakespeare,  if  we  take  the  above  order  of  the  plays  to  be 
correct. 

{A  very  brief  estimate  of  each  of  the  plays  of  Shakespeare 
begins  on  the  next  pagey  and  may  be  used  for  reference  as  the 
student  takes  up  the  plays  themselves.) 

A  poet  is  a  more  sensitive  man  than  most  of  his  fellows.  He 
sees  more,  therefore.  He  is  also  better  equipped  with  the  power 
of  expression  of  his  experience.  In  wide,  far,  and  deep  seeing, 
and  in  power  of  fine  adaptation  of  thing  seen  to  power  of  reader 
or  auditor  to  grasp,  Shakespeare,  excels  all  other  men  who  have 
written. 

His  "  Poems."  —  The  "  Poems  "  of  Shakespeare  are,  in  the 
order  of  their  publication,  Venus  and  Adonis  (1593),  The  Rape 
of  Lucrece  (1594),  The  Passionate  Pilgrim  (1599),  The  Phosnix 
and  the  Turtle  (1601),  the  Sonnets ^  and  A  Lover^s  Complaint 
(1609).  The  Sonnets  seem  to  have  been  under  composition  all 
the  way  from  1592  to  1609.  Some  of  the  poems  in  The  Passion- 
ate Pilgrim  are  not  by  Shakespeare.  While  all  of  the  poems 
under  the  titles  given  above  are  noteworthy  for  various  reasons, 
the  chief  reason  being  that  they  contain  one  of  the  leading  ideas 
which  is  carried  throughout  the  dramas,  namely,  that  man  fails 


RENAISSANCE  LITERATURE      '  85 

because  of  the  too  strong  dominance  of  some  one  quality  in 
his  make-up,  yet  it  is  only  the  Sonnets  that  are  widely  and  popu- 
larly read.  Vast  quantities  of  ink  have  been  used  in  futile 
attempts  to  clear  up  the  mystery  connected  both  with  certain 
persons  in  the  Sonnets  and  with  the  meaning  of  the  Sonnets 
as  a  whole.  Mystery  has  generally  degenerated  into  mystifica- 
tion in  these  attempts,  and  httle  has  been  gained.  It  ought 
to  be  evident  that  Shakespeare  reveals  in  these  personal  poems 
which  we  call  Sonnets  that  he  was  guilty  of  jealousy  in  relation  to 
another  poet,  that  he  had  two  most  intimate  friends,  one  of 
whom  was  a  very  attractive  young  man  and  the  other  of  whom 
was  none  too  good  a  woman,  and  that  of  his  alliance  with  the 
woman  he  became  thoroughly  ashamed.  Professor  George  H. 
Palmer  in  a  little  volume  upon  the  Sonnets  makes  the  claim  that 
their  author  saw  his  passions  to  be  matters  of  a  moment  only, 
and  so  became  aware  of  an  imperial  Self  which  could  not  calmly 
be  subjected  to  such  momentary  influences,  and  hence  that  the 
author  passed  on  to  the  conception  of  spiritual  immortality. 

BRIEF   CRITICAL   SUGGESTIONS    UPON    EACH    OF    THE    PLAYS    OF 
SHAKESPEARE 

Comedies.  —  We  have  said  that  the  people  of  the  days  of 
Shakespearean  drama  did  not  care  for  realism  on  their  stage,  if 
realism  is  to  be  understood  in  the  sense  of  photographic  repro- 
duction of  life.  The  first  of  the  comedies,  Lovers  Labour's  Lost, 
illustrates  the  author's  successful  avoidance  of  this  kind  of 
realism.  He  does  this  by  means  of  a  sub-plot,  a  plot  subordinate 
to  the  main  action  of  the  play.  This  sub-plot,  takes  a  "  fantas- 
tical "  Spaniard  (a  favorite  stage  character  of  the  day),  a 
curate,  a  schoolmaster,  a  constable,  and  a  clown  as  its  chief 
characters,  and  purposely  forces  itself  into  prominence  at  almost 
every  point  at  which  the  main  plot  would  become  very  life-like 


86  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

in  minute  detail.  The  play  is  most  interesting  to  study  from 
this  point  of  view.  The  songs  in  the  play,  particularly  those 
"  maintained,"  as  the  fantastic  Spaniard  says,  by  the  owl  and 
the  cuckoo,  are  very  lovely.  In  the  very  last  words  of  this 
play,  Shakespeare,  in  a  reference  to  Marlowe,  reveals  his  own 
modesty. 

The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona  is  a  much  more  "  realistic  " 
drama  than  Love's  Labour^ s  Lost,  and  a  better  play,  if  not  such 
good  poetry.  As  early  as  in  this  play  the  author  begins  to  show 
himself  troubled  over  the  problem  which  fills  his  pages  more 
and  more ;  the  problem,  namely,  that  the  haunting,  harassing 
preoccupying  of  the  mind  by  some  one  thought  —  of  fear  or  of 
desire  —  is  the  source  of  nearly  all  the  great  difficulties  and 
tragedies  which  beset  the  life  of  men,  and  that  it  is  the  treachery 
which  this  preoccupation  practices  upon  the  mind  and  life  of 
a  man,  by  absorbing  all  his  energies,  which  is  the  immediate 
occasion  of  these  difficulties.  Yet  it  is  evident  that  this  play 
is  by  a  youthful  writer,  because  the  thinking  about  this  problem 
is  not  well-sustained.  The  author  is  often  simply  practicing 
the  art  of  writing ;  as,  for  instance,  in  the  song  in  Act  IV,  in 
which  there  is  an  obvious  attempt  to  imitate  music  rather 
than  to  express  emotion. 

The  Comedy  oj  Errors  is  an  excellently  constructed  stage  play, 
in  imitation  of  the  MencBchmi  of  the  Latin  dramatist,  Plautus. 
But  it  is  decidedly  a  "  stage  play,"  full  of  tricks  and  conven- 
tional devices  for  amusement's  sake,  rather  than  chiefly  a  thing 
of  thought.     It  is,  however,  a  masterpiece  in  dramatic  skill. 

A  Midsummer  Nighfs  Dream  is  a  thing  of  beauty  and  a  joy 
forever.  It  is  packed  with  poetry  from  first  scene  to  last.  It 
is  filled  with  descriptions  that  are  unexcelled ;  they  convey  to 
us  the  images  desired,  and  yet  such  images  as  no  other  means 
of  description  could  convey.    No  other  man  has  ever  seen  life 


RENAISSANCE  LITERATURE  87 

about  him  so  fully,  so  deeply,  and  so  clearly  as  has  the  author  of 
this  fantasy.  The  great  art  of  the  poem  is  that  into  a  fantasy 
its  author  succeeds  in  putting,  almost  in  full,  the  English  mind. 
The  material  for  this  play  was  taken  from_  current  coin  every- 
where, but  was  reissued  stamped  with  the  ineffaceable  image 
and  superscription  of  the  world's  greatest  poet.  Shakespeare's 
chief  problem  —  that  man  makes  the  mistakes  he  does  make  in 
this  world  because  his  mind  is  so  filled  with  some  one  thing  as  to 
interfere  with  the  working  of  all  other  influences  within  him  — 
is  in  even  this  play,  and  yet  the  author  throws  the  responsi- 
bility not  upon  the  man  himself,  but  upon  a  fate  without  the 
man,  in  this  instance  a  fate  not  unkind. 

The  Merchant  of  Venice  is  a  tragedy,  if  the  proud  Jew  is  its 
hero,  all  the  more  tragic  because  the  Jew  is  willing  to  be  dis- 
graced rather  than  fac^  death ;  but  it  is  the  tradition  to  consider 
it  a  comedy.  Shylock  is  a  great  brain,  undoubtedly,  quite 
capable  of  seeing  through  the  trickery  of  even  Portia.  In 
this  play  Shakespeare  is  as  much  interested  in  the  heart 
as  in  the  mind.  The  gentle  characters,  such  as  Antonio, 
triumph  in  the  end,  or  have  triumph  thrust  into  their  hands 
by  the  kindly  fate  who  is  their  author  and  the  author  of 
the  play.  The  play  is  interesting  for  its  plot  construction 
There  are  four  stories  within  it :  the  story  of  the  caskets, 
that  of  the  pound  of  flesh,  Jessica's  story,  and  the  story  of 
the  rings.  The  four  stories  mingle,  in  comic  and  tragic  lights 
and  shadows,  meeting  in  the  middle  of  the  play,  and  giving 
relief  and  strength  to  the  movement  of  the  play  and  the  flow 
of  emotions  of  the  audience.  This  is  one  of  the  best  of  the 
Shakespearean  dramas  to  study  from  the  point  of  view  of  its 
structure. 

In  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew  there  is  much  cleverness  and 
some  delightful  familiarity  with  rural  scenes,  though  it  is  a  rather 


88  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

poor  "  story."  The  theme  of  the  reducing  of  a  shrewish 
woman  to  submitting  to  marriage  is  an  old  one,  and  has  been 
employed  many  times,  too,  since  the  sixteenth  century.  The 
upshot  is  somewhat  melancholy ;  and  what  part  and  lot  Shake- 
speare had  in  the  play  must  have  been  ironic,  —  still  it  makes 
very  good  acting.  The  play  is  of  mixed  authorship,  and  is 
based  upon  at  least  two  earlier  comedies  by  other  authors,  one 
of  them  an  Italian. 

The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  whenever  written,  was  pub- 
lished in  1602,  after  the  publication  of  the  two  parts  of  Henry 
IV  and  of  Henry  V.  There  are  at  least  four  sources  for  the 
plot,  but  the  character  of  Falstaff  is  Shakespeare's  creation 
carried  over  from  his  three  plays  just  mentioned.  If  the 
action  of  The  Merry  Wives  seems  exaggerated,  it  is  only  be- 
cause all  dramatic  action  is  quickened  if  not  even  much 
heightened  beyond  that  of  actual  happenings.  At  the  turn 
of  the  century  Shakespeare  was  writing  very  rapidly;  and 
there  were,  no  doubt,  times  when  he  gave  himself,  perhaps  from 
sheer  weariness,  to  little  more  than  pleasing  the  Tudor  public. 
The  Merry  Wives  would  do  that  better  than  anything  else. 
In  this  play,  city-bred  Englishmen  would  enjoy  seeing  their 
country  cousins  in  the  most  absurd  of  situations  and,  as 
Englishmen  would  like  the  next  moment,  in  situations  over 
which  self-contained  men  and  women  held  complete  control. 

In  As  You  Like  It  the  playwright  presents  the  world  in 
miniature.  The  broad  and  generous,  yet  at  times  indifferent, 
courses  of  nature,  and  the  shifting  circumstances  of  man  are 
passed  through  and  thought  upon.  Jacques,  the  chief  thinker 
in  the  play,  has  not  suffered  so  much  that  his  view  of  life  is 
distorted.  He  has  suffered  enough  to  understand  the  sorrows  of 
others ;  and  he  is  large  enough  in  mind  to  view  human  life  in 
its  complex  relations,  and  not  from  the  self-centered  viewpoint 


RENAISSANCE  LITERATURE  89 

of  the  individual.  But  he  is  more  direct  in  his  observation  and 
comment  than  his  imitator,  John  Keats,  whose  sonnet  entitled 
The  Human  Seasons  may  be  compared  with  Jacques's  observa- 
tions upon  the  seven  ages  of  man.  The  charm  of  Shakespeare's 
women  is  at  its  height  in  the  Rosalind  of  this  play.  None 
takes  us  with  winsomeness  more  than  she. 

Much  Ado  About  Nothing  is  really  about  something  of  great 
importance,  namely,  the  effect  of  "  what  the  neighbors  say  the 
neighbors  say."  While  what  they  say  they  say  may  be  of  no 
consequence  in  itself,  yet  its  effect  is  portentous.  This  the 
wise  Shakespeare  makes  plain ;  and  while  we  are  learning  the 
lesson  we  have  much  of  high  entertainment. 

No  play  of  Shakespeare's  is  better  known  than  Twelfth  Night. 
It  may  not  be  read  so  much  as  the  first  part  of  Henry  IV y  as 
Dr.  Johnson  has  said,  but  it  is  played  more  frequently.  It  is 
considered  by  many  to  be  the  best  of  the  comedies.  The 
beauty  of  the  character  of  Viola,  and  the  immensely  amusing 
self-deception  of  Malvolio,  the  liveliness  of  the  movement  of 
the  scenes,  and  the  captivating  poetry  of  numberless  passages 
have  become  inalienable  possessions  of  all  theater  lovers. 

That  "  The  web  of  our  life  is  of  a  mingled  yarn,  good  and  ill 
together,"  is  what  this  man  of  vision  puts  into  AlVs  Well  that 
Ends  Well.  Man  in  drama  walks  through  life  as  does  the  horse 
with  blinders  on;  he  sees  in  only  one  direction.  In  tragedy 
the  outcome  of  this  partial  blindness  is  destruction.  In  comedy 
the  blindness  is  over-ruled  by  the  dramatist  causing  some 
power  outside  the  troubled  character  to  intervene  and  set  all 
affairs  right.  This  occurs  in  the  case  of  the  man  and  the  woman 
chiefly  involved  in  the  incidents  of  this  play. 

Measure  for  Measure  is  thought  to  have  had  some  historical 
foundation.  The  greed  and  passions  of  men  and  the  generosity 
and  clean  fineness  of  upright  living  are  historical,  surely,  — 


90  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

and  we  have  them  here ;  in  so  far  there  is  no  doubt  that  the 
play  had  many  a  historical  antecedent.  This  play  in  its  action 
follows  a  formula  with  which  modern  readers  of  drama  are  now 
familiar  in  the  works  of  Ibsen,  —  from  calm  through  storm  to 
calm,  —  opening  with  a  surface  appearance  of  profound  peace, 
but  with  crises  in  life  almost  immediately  forcing  them- 
selves upward  through  this  thin  crust  of  superficial  quiet  and 
revealing  a  seething  volcano  beneath,  and  then  settling  down  to 
peace  once  more.  The  opening  lines  of  the  fourth  act  are 
sung  by  a  boy,  and  the  words  are  the  nearest  to  pure  music  of 
any  in  our  language. 

Chronicle  plays.  —  Shakespeare  never  wrote  a  poorer  play 
than  the  chronicle  play  which  goes  under  the  name  of  The  First 
Part  of  King  Henry  the  Sixth.  Indeed,  it  was  by  no  means  all 
written  by  him,  or,  if  it  was,  it  must  have  been  during  his  nod- 
ding hours.  It  interests  the  reader  to  see  that  in  it  one  of  the 
characters  is  Joan  La  Pucelle,  commonly  known  as  Joan  of  Arc. 
The  treatment  of  her  is  unhandsome,  and  unworthy.  There  are 
great  names  in  the  play,  but  the  bearers  of  those  names  rarely  do 
great  things,  though  they  occasionally  speak  excellent  poetry. 

Two  or  three  or  more  hands  had  a  share  in  the  production  of 
both  the  Second  Part  and  the  Third  Part  of  Henry  VI ^  but  they 
were  famous  hands,  probably  those  of  Peele,  Greene,  Marlowe, 
and  Shakespeare.  The  result  is  what  might  be  expected  :  too 
many  cooks  spoil  the  broth.  Still  there  are  lofty  passages. 
There  would  have  to  be  if  the  hand  of  Shakespeare  went  far  in 
either  creating  or  revising  them.  In  The  Second  Part  of  King 
Henry  the  Sixth  we  are  in  the  midst  of  the  famous  Wars  of  the 
Roses,  in  which  the  houses  of  York  and  Lancaster  contended  for 
supremacy  in  the  kingdom.  The  three  parts  of  Henry  VI  form 
a  trilogy,  with  these  wars  as  the  background  for  certain  strong 
characters  to  live  and  act  upon.    Richard  Plantagenet,  Duke 


RENAISSANCE  LITERATURE  91 

of  York,  is  the  strong  man  of  the  Second  Part,  and  the  White 
Rose  wins  under  his  leadership. 

In  The  Third  Part  of  King  Henry  the  Sixth,  Edward,  the 
son  of  Richard  Plantagenet,  is  placed  upon  the  throne  during  the 
life  of  Henry,  by  Warwick,  the  king-maker,  —  "  Proud  setter 
up  and  puller  down  of  kings,"  Queen  Margaret  calls  him.  War- 
wick is  also  celebrated  in  The  Last  of  the  Barons  by  the  nine- 
teenth-century novelist,  Bulwer  Lytton.  But  the  one  char- 
acter in  the  play  who  begins  to  rivet  our  attention  with  a  sense 
of  impending  horrors  is  the  evil  and  sinister  genius,  murderous 
even  thus  early,  Richard,  Duke  of  Gloucester,  afterwards 
Richard  III.  The  superb  but  tender  soliloquy  of  Henry  VI 
in  the  fifth  scene  of  Act  II  has  the  last  word  to  say  upon  king- 
ship, — 

O  God  !  methinks  it  were  a  happy  life, 

To  be  no  better  than  a  homely  swain. 

If  this  were  a  history  of  English  politics,  we  should  take  up 
The  Tragedy  of  King  Richard  the  Third  immediately  after  the 
three  parts  of  Henry  VI,  for  but  two  kings,  Edward  IV  and  Ed- 
ward V,  intervened  between  Henry  VI  and  Richard  III.  But 
since  we  are  trying  as  nearly  as  possible  to  follow  the  plays  of 
Shakespeare  in  the  probable  order  of  their  writing,  the  play 
now  to  characterize  in  a  few  words  is  The  Life  and  Death  of 
King  John.  The  English  chronicle  plays  did  not  undertake 
to  dramatize  episodes  from  the  national  point  of  view,  but  at- 
tempted to  dramatize  the  annals  of  the  nation's  history,  and 
hence  took  the  chief  occurrences  in  some  one  reign.  Sometimes, 
as  in  the  case  of  Henry  VI  and  of  Henry  IV,  it  took  more  than 
one  play  to  cover  the  one  reign.  This  play  of  King  John  covers 
the  reign  of  the  man  who  assumed  a  "  borrow'd  majesty  '' 
when  the  rightful  king,  Richard  Cceur  de  Lion,  was  away  at  the 
wars  of  the  Crusades.     It  was  during  the  reign  of  this  John  that 


92  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

the  nobles  wrested  Magna  Charta  from  the  crown,  at  Runny- 
mede,  in  1215;  but  Shakespeare  is  less  interested  in  that  fact 
than  in  the  intellect  strong  enough  to  assume  majesty  and  yet 
without  the  faculty  for  handling  men.  This  is  a  great  play. 
A  few  have  even  said  it  is  among  the  very  greatest.  It  is  more 
neglected  by  readers  than  it  should  be,  for  there  is  withm  the 
play  much  of  strong  thought  and  of  passionate  emotion. 

King  Richard  II  is  another  play  less  read  than  it  should  be, 
even  in  comparison  with  others  of  the  Shakespearean  plays, 
doubtless  because  it  is  historical.  Its  theme  is  what  Charles 
Lamb  called  "  The  reluctant  pangs  of  abdicating  royalty." 
"  Woe  to  the  land  when  the  king  is  a  child,"  Langland  in  Piers 
Plowman  had  quoted  from  Ecclesiastes.  Richard  II  came  to 
the  throne  when  but  ten  years  of  age,  and  the  woes  of  the  land 
were  up  and  well  afoot  by  the  time  the  action  of  the  play  begins. 
Richard  is  a  lover  of  beauty,  and,  although  he  fights  well  for 
the  retention  of  his  crown,  he  is  no  match  for  the  rough  and 
shrewd  politicians  about  him.  There  was  much  in  the  actual 
history  of  Richard's  reign  as  highly  romantic  as  anything  in 
this  play.  The  play  has  brief  passages  often  quoted,  favorite 
lines  being  among  those  spoken  of  the  banished  Norfolk,  who 

toiled  with  works  of  war,  retired  himself 
To  Italy ;  and  there  at  Venice  gave 
His  body  to  that  pleasant  country's  earth,  » 

And  his  pure  soul  unto  his  captain  Christ, 
Under  whose  colors  he  had  fought  so  long. 

Chaucer  lived  and  wrought  during  the  reign  of  Richard  II,  and 
it  is  surprising  that  Shakespeare  does  not  use  him  somehow  in 
this  play. 

King  Richard  III  is  one  of  the  best  known  of  the  plays.  It 
has  the  distinction  of  being  the  only  one  of  the  chronicle  plays 
that  successfully  holds  the  popular  stage  to-day.    It  is  not  mor- 


RENAISSANCE  LITERATURE  93 

bid  curiosity  that  keeps  people  still  interested  in  Richard.  It 
is  not  his  misshapen  body  nor  his  hideous  features  nor  his 
murderous  deeds  that  attract  the  theatergoer.  It  is  the  fact 
that  we  re-learn  from  the  play  that,  however  towering  an  in- 
tellect man  may  have,  the  thoughts  and  the  imaginations  of  his 
heart  may  be  evil  continually.  Aristotle,  in  his  treatise  on 
Poetics,  says  that  the  emotions  which  men  feel  in  the  presence  of 
tragedy  are  pity  and  terror.  No  one  can  see  the  play  of  Richard 
III  without  the  overwhelming  feeling  of  terror  at  the  recog- 
nition of  what  intellect  may  do  when  wedded  to  an  evil  heart. 
Shakespeare  here  shows  his  dramatic  instinct  at  a  high  degree 
of  power.  He  is  able  almost  perfectly  to  take  upon  himself 
the  conditions  of  other  minds  and  other  times  and  speak  what 
they  would  speak.  The  poetry  of  intense  emotion  and  of  high 
intellect  is  here ;  and  the  dramatic  movement  is  swift  and  power- 
ful. Shakespeare  is  one  who  is  able  to  gain  all  this  by  methods 
of  his  own.  The  genius  can,  by  the  sheer  force  of  his  own 
power,  override  the  injunctions  of  the  theorist  and  accomplish 
his  purposes  by  any  means  he  may  choose  to  adopt.  For  ex- 
ample, it  is  a  definite  rule  of  the  theorist  about  the  drama  that 
it  will  never  do  to  permit  the  character  in  the  play  to  reveal  by 
its  own  words  the  circumstances  that  surround  its  acts  and  the 
personal  motives  that  lead  to  those  acts.  We  are  taught  that 
these  things  must  be  revealed  in  indirect  ways.  But  Shake- 
speare pays  no  attention  to  such  requirements,  and  when 
Richard,  Duke  of  Gloucester,  comes  limping  down  the  stage 
and  says  precisely  what  we  are  told  he  should  not  say,  we  are 
carried  out  of  ourselves  and  surrender  at  once  to  the  spell  of 
the  play : 

Now  is  the  winter  of  our  discontent 
Made  glorious  summer  by  this  sun  of  York ; 
And  all  the  clouds  that  lour'd  upon  our  house 


94  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

In  the  deef)  bosom  of  the  ocean  buried. 

Now  are  our  brows  bound  with  victorious  wreaths; 

Our  bruised  arms  hung  up  for  monuments ; 

Our  stern  alarums  changed  to  merry  meetings, 

Our  dreadful  marches  to  deHghtful  measures. 

Grim-visaged  war  has  smooth'd  his  wrinkled  front; 

And  now,  instead  of  mounting  barbed  steeds 

To  fright  the  souls  of  fearful  adversaries. 

He  capers  nimbly  in  a  lady's  chamber 

To  the  lascivious  pleasing  of  a  lute. 

But  I,  that  am  not  shaped  for  sportive  tricks. 

Nor  made  to  court  an  amorous  looking-glass ; 

I,  that  am  rudely  stamp'd,  and  want  love's  majesty 

To  strut  before  a  wanton  ambling  nymph ; 

I,  that  am  curtail 'd  of  this  fair  proportion,  ^ 

Cheated  of  feature  by  dissembling  nature, 

Deform'd,  unfinish'd,  sent  before  my  time 

Into  this  breathing  world,  scarce  half  made  up, 

And  that  so  lamely  and  unfashionable 

That  dogs  bark  at  me  as  I  halt  by  them : 

Why  I,  in  this  weak  piping  time  of  peace, 

Have  no  delight  to  pass  away  the  time, 

Unless  to  spy  my  .shadow  in  the  sun 

And  descant  on  mine  own  deformity ; 

And  therefore,  since  I  cannot  prove  a  lover 

To  entertain  these  fair,  well-sp>oken  days, 

I  am  determined  to  prove  a  villaih 

And  hate  the  idle  pleasure  of  these  days. 

Plots  have  I  laid,  inductions  dangerous. 

By  drunken  prophecies,  libels,  and  dreams. 

To  set  my  brother  Clarence  and  the  king 

In  deadly  hate  the  one  against  the  other : 

And  if  King  Edward  be  as  true  and  just 

As  I  am  subtle,  false,  and  treacherous. 

This  day  should  Clarence  closely  be  mew'd  up 

About  a  prophecy,  which  says  that  G 

Of  Edward's  heirs  the  murderer  shall  be. 

Dive,  thoughts,  down  to  my  soul :  here  Clarence  comes. 


RENAISSANCE  LITERATURE  95 

Brother,  good  day :  what  means  this  armed  guard 
That  waits  upon  your  grace  ? 

Dr.  Samuel  Johnson  said  that  "  None  of  Shakespeare's  plays 
is  more  read  than  the  First  and  Second  Farts  of  Henry  the 
Fourth.''  This  is  still  true,  because  of  the  fact  that  from  the 
moment  we  read  *'  Enter  the  Prince  of  Wales  and  Falstaff," 
the  writer  keeps  us  fascinated  with  that  scandalous  old  man, 
"  that  old  white-bearded  Satan,"  Jack  Falstaff  himself,  — 
"  plump  Jack."  It  is  often  mistakenly  said  that  the  creator 
of  "  this  ton  of  a  man  "  loved  him.  If  he  did,  he  did  not  hesitate 
to  handle  him  untenderly,  without  gloves.  He  did  laugh  with 
and  at  him ;  but  he  doubtless  would  have  objected  to  the  name 
"Swine Centaur,"  given  to  Falstaff  by  Victor  Hugo,  the  Shake- 
speare of  France.  Few  men  have  ever  been  wittier  or  the 
cause  of  more  wit  in  other  men  than  Sir  John  Falstaff. 

Victor  Hugo  says  that  it  is  the  genius  of  the  first  order  who 
creates  human  types.  In  the  two  parts  of  King  Henry  IV, 
the  genius  we  call  Shakespeare  has  created  several  human 
types.  Among  them,  aside  from  the  wicked  old  knight,  are 
the  "  mad-cap  "  Prince  of  Wales,  whom  Shakespeape  seems 
to  us  to  have  loved  too  much ;  the  impetuous  Percy,  "  the 
Hotspur  of  the  North  " ;  Glendower,  the  well-bred,  senti- 
mental man  of  feelings  and  dreams,  brought  up  on  the  legends 
of  the  country  of  the  Welsh ;  and  "  that  same  starved  Justice," 
Robert  Shallow,  the  man  who  couldn't  lose  his  senses  because 
he  didn't  have  any.  It  may  seem  paradoxical  that  some  of 
these  strange  characters,  particularly  Sir  John  Falstaff,  should 
be  so  attractive  to  us;  but  that  they  are  is  evidence  that 
their  creator  knew  what  human  nature,  perversely  or  not, 
takes  delight  in.  - 

These  two  plays  are  filled  with  lines  that  are  daily  in  the 
mouths  of  many  of  us,  such  as 


96  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

"...  tell  truth,  and  shame  the  devil." 

"Give  the  devil  his  due." 

"The  lion  will  not  touch  the  true  prince." 

"More  than  a  little  is  by  much  too  much." 

"Shall  I  not  take  mine  ease  in  mine  inn?" 

"Thou  seest  I  have  more  flesh  than  another  man;    and  therefore  more 

frailty." 
"The  nice  hazard  of  one  doubtful  hour." 
"O,  this  boy  lends  mettle  to  us  all." 
"Past  and  to  come  seems  best;   things  present,  worst." 
"The  wish  was  father  to  that  thought." 
"The  power  and  puissance  of  the  king." 

Many  others  there  are,  —  Falstaff 's  strictures  on  the  value 
of  '*  honour  "  in  war,  and  King  Henry's  apostrophe  to  sleep, 
ending  with  the  statement  that 

Uneasy  lies  the  head  that  wears  a  crown, 

are  among  the  most  famous;    and  we  may  add  the  King's 
delicately  lovely  reference  to 

those  holy  fields 

Over  whose  acres  walk'd  those  blessed  feet, 
Which  fourteen  hundred  years  ago  were  nail'd 
For  our  advantage  on  the  bitter  cross. 

There  is  not  a  great  deal  of  great  poetry  in  these  two  plays. 
Yet  there  is  much,  for  their  author  could  not  write  long  without 
the  poetic  largeness  of  his  mind  revealing  itself  in  copious 
measure. 

"  Homer,  Job,  iEschylus,  Isaiah,  Ezekiel,  Lucretius,  Juvenal, 
St.  John,  St.  Paul,  Tacitus,  Dante,  Rabelais,  Cervantes, 
Shakespeare,  —  that  is  the  avenue  of  the  immovable  giants  of 
the  human  mind,"  said  Victor  Hugo.  If  one  were  to  begin  his 
acquaintance  with  Shakespeare  through  the  reading  of  King 
Henry   F,  he  would  wonder  why  such  high  praise  could  be 


RENAISSANCE  LITERATURE  97 

rendered  to  its  author.  Although  Shakespeare  may  have  been 
on  the  eve  of  writing  Twelfth  Night,  Julius  Ccesar,  and  Hamlet, 
when  Henry  V  was  coming  from  his  pen,  yet  for  some  reason 
he  was  wilUng  to  give  himself  in  the  last-named  to  the  writing  of 
what  is  little  more  than  a  chronicle,  rather  than  even  a  chronicle 
play.  Even  though  the  battle  of  Agincourt,  famous  in  history, 
occurs  during  the  action  of  this  play,  yet  the  content  of  the  play 
is  largely  filled  with  petty  quarrels  among  soldiers.  Fluellen, 
the  Welshman,  is  a  better  and  a  truer  man  than  Glendower, 
the  Welshman  in  Henry  IV,  and  so  is  worthy  of  notice.  Henry 
V's  wooing  of  Katherine  of  France  is  interesting;  it  is  even 
most  charming,  to  some  readers.  The  only  way  in  which 
one  is  likely  to  consider  this  play  of  value  is  to  think  of  it  as  a 
part  of  the  series  of  the  chronicle  plays.  Taken  thus,  it  is  a 
good  filler-in  between  Henry  I V  and  Henry  VI. 

Tragedies.  —  If  Shakespeare  wrote  any  part  of  Titus  An- 
dronicus,  it  was  a  small  part.  This  is  one  of  the  horror  stories 
that  detract  from  the  beauty  of  the  pages  of  literature.  Shake- 
speare may  have  adapted  it  to  the  stage  at  the  urgency  of  some 
theater  manager,  or  because  he  was  in  need  of  money  and  took 
it  as  a  hack  job.  The  details  of  structure  and  device  show  a 
close  intimacy  with  the  theater,  such  as  Shakespeare,  the  actor, 
must  have  had ;  and  the  play  was  very  popular  in  the  day  of  its 
reputed  author. 

The  works  of  Shakespeare  are  sometimes  spoken  of  as  "  Poems 
and  Plays."  The  "  Plays  "  are  the  dramas  we  are  now  in  the 
midst  of  characterizing  in  this  rapid  fashion.  The  "Poems" 
have  been  briefly  discussed.  The  play  of  Romeo  and  Juliet 
waspubHshed  in  1597,  and  was  probably  written  before  1596. 
It  seems  to  have  come  from  the  author's  pen  while  he  was  in  the 
mood  of  the  "  poems,"  for  its -theme  is  the  same  as  theirs,  viz. 
youthful  love  in  most  passionate  form.    That  reason  alone  would 


gS  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

not  be  sufficient  for  thinking  it  written  at  about  the  same  time 
as  the  "  poems,"  but  we  also  find  that  the  theme  is  handled 
with  the  same  tense  lyricism  as  they  are,  that  its  diction 
is  rich  and  ornate  as  is  theirs,  that  it  has  many  rhymed  couplets 
and  double  rhymes,  that  it  contains  sonnets  and  employs  some 
of  the  stanzaic  forms  of  the  poems.  The  English  feeling  for 
landscape  is  strong  in  this  play,  as  in  many  others.  Like  Pe- 
trarch before  him,  and  like  the  romantic  poets  of  the  early 
nineteenth  century,  also,  Shakespeare  makes  his  characters 
to  observe  that  their  private  pangs  become  Nature^s  own 
feeling,  as  when  Romeo  must  leave  Juliet  and  says 

Envious  streaks 
Do  lace  the  severing  clouds  in  yonder  east. 

But  it  is  youthful  love  crossed  by  ancestral  hate  that  chiefly 
attracts  the  attention  in  this  beautiful  poem-play. 

In  Julius  CcBsar  the  author  made  a  play  which  has  delighted 
the  hearts  of  young  and  old  in  all  generations  since  its  writing. 
It  has  delighted  them,  even  though  it  is  tragic ;  for  its  fine  oppor- 
tunity for  impressive  stage  scenes,  its  noble  character  sketching, 
its  grand  speeches,  and  its  brisk  action  are  welcomed  wherever 
men  read  or  go  to  the  playhouse.  As  is  often  pointed  out,  the 
hero  of  the  play  is  not  Caesar,  but  Brutus ;  but  a  play  with  the 
title  of  "  Marcus  Brutus  "  would  not  so  well  appeal  to  many, 
—  not  to  a  first-night  audience,  at  least. 

Readers  and  theatergoers  differ  widely  as  to  which  of  the 
plays  of  Shakespeare  is  greatest.  Each  one  of  the  tragedies, 
with  the  exception  of  Titus  Andronicus  and  Timon  of  Athens y 
has  its  advocates.  But  probably  there  are  more  who  favor  one 
of  these  four,  —  Hamlet,  Macbeth,  Othello,  and  King  Lear,  — 
though  as  great  a  man  as  Tolstoi  found  the  reading  of  King 
Lear  to  be  a  bore.     Hamlet  is  a  thought  play  rather  than  a 


RENAISSANCE  LITERATUki!  .'.•••  '99 

play  of  action.  In  truth,  the  drama  iS'tS^'t'Htiililel'Virfiseii 
fails  to  act  even  under  so  much  reason  for  action.  Yet  no  play 
begins  with  more  of  tense  and  desperate  excitement  than  Ham- 
let, the  Prince  oj  Denmark,  or,  as  it  might  be  called,  "Hamlet, 
the  Doubter."  Many  stage  versions  drop  the  first  126  lines 
and  begin  with  the  second  entrance  of  the  Ghost  and  Horatio's 
fearfully  excited 

I'll  cross  it  though  it  blast  me.     Stay,  illusion ! 
If  thou  hast  any  sound,  or  use  of  voice, 
Speak  to  me. 

Could  there  be  anything  more  dramatic  than  the  appearance  of 
that  tongue-tied  witness  to  a  deed  of  horror  which  its  son  and 
namesake  is  to  be  called  upon  to  avenge?  There  is  no  better 
illustration  of  the  ancient  Greek  and  Shakespearean  method  of 
opening  a  play  with  the  action  right  in  the  heart  of  a  tremendous 
crisis.  All  action  has  its  rise,  progress,  culmination,  and  solu- 
tion, and  yet  in  the  greatest  of  plays  these  parts  are  all  within  a 
tense  and  catastrophic  crisis  itself,  and  little  or  no  time  is 
spent  in  the  exposition  of  antecedent  circumstances.  The  so- 
called  "  exposition  "  of  the  play  in  Hamlet  is  in  the  second  scene 
of  the  third  act ;  not  in  the  opening  scenes  of  the  first  act,  as 
so  many  theorists  about  the  technique  of  the  drama  think  it 
always  should  be.  And  this  lack  of  exposition,  or  mere  hinting 
at  it,  or  postponing  of  it  until  later  than  the  beginning  of  the 
play  is  almost  the  rule  in  Sophocles,  Shakespeare,  and  Ibsen, 
the  three  greatest  of  the  world's  dramatists.  Beginning  within 
the  crisis  in  the  lives  of  characters  or  even  at  the  catastrophe 
of  their  lives,  is  the  rule  with  them.  Horatio  in  this  play  is  a 
much-loved  character,  —  and  is  an  indispensable  foil  to  Hamlet. 
We  never  forget  the  other  characters  in  Hamlet,  but  these  two 
are  so  dominant  that  we  admire  no  other.    One  of  the  best 


iCXi  ..ENGLISH  LITERATURE 


stiiidic^  of  this  «iildyc  is»'to  be  found  in  Lowell's  essay  entitled 
Shakespeare  Once  More.  For  the  interest  it  stimulates,  that 
essay  should  be  read  by  every  student  of  Hamlet. 

"  Humanity  reading  is  humanity  knowing."  The  play  of 
Othello  is  not  now  often  produced  upon  the  stage,  but  only  two 
or  three  others  of  Shakespeare's  plays  are  more  often  read  in  the 
easy-chair.  Every  one,  therefore,  knows  the  gentle  Desdemona, 
the  arch-fiend  lago,  and  the  noble  Moor  of  Venice.  This  play 
was  written  to  show  how  a  man's  mind  may  be  thrown  out  of 
balance  by  the  passion  of  jealousy,  and  all  good  thereby  be 
reversed  to  evil,  —  a  tragedy,  again,  that  occurs  because  the 
mind  of  man  is  subject  to  being  overruled  by  one  of  its  qualities. 
And  if  one  is  ever  hesitant  about  what  the  really  dramatic  is, 
he  may  learn  by  turning  to  the  speech  of  Othello,  the  Moor, 
just  before  the  stabbing  of  himself  in  the  last  scene  of  the 
drama,  and  visualizing  the  action  while  he  reads  the  speech. 
Nothing  more  crisply  dramatic  was  ever  staged  than  that; 
it  IS  perfect  "  dramatic  "  speech  and  action.  It  gives  the 
short,  sharp  shock  which  the  journalist  is  always  seeking  to 
give,  and  which  the  great  dramatist  frequently  succeeds  in 
giving. 

King  Lear  is,  if  not  the  greatest  of  the  plays,  at  least  the  one 
in  which  the  worst  of  tragedies  is  enacted,  the  tragedy  of  filial 
ingratitude;  though  it  must  be  added  that  the  foolish  father 
brings  the  tragedy  upon  himself  by  failure  to  understand  the 
nature  of  his  daughters,  and  by  over-fondness  for  the  expression 
of  reverence  and  affection  for  himself.  And  yet  tragedy 
of  fearful  sort  was  certain  to  come  upon  all  these  p>ersons 
because  of  the  unnatural  qualities  of  two  of  the  daughters. 
Shakespeare  appears,  in  the  description  of  Goneril,  to  suggest 
that  there  are  forces  within  the  life  of  the  universe  that  are  be- 
yond the  scope  of  any  truly  natural  explanation.    If  this  play 


RENAISSANCE  LITERATUllR»  i  ^i  i  'v  ,        LOb 

is  not  at  the  apex  of  all  his  plays,  it  is  beCliLps\;-i:jiAaCtibii..is«exdg'-' 
gerated  beyond  our  power  to  grasp  its  naturalness.  But  there 
is  much,  indeed,  that  is  true  to  the  hitherto  unplumbed  depths 
of  human  nature,  and  a  great  deal  of  it  is  expressed  here  in  the 
most  superbly  majestic  poetry.  Perhaps  no  cry  except  that 
from  the  cross  has  echoed  farther  and  deeper  in  the  human  heart 
than  that  of  old  dying  Lear  over  dead  Cordelia,  — 

Thou'lt  come  no  more, 
Never,  never,  never,  never,  never. 

The  story  of  Macbeth,  the  man  with  an  over-vaulting  ambi- 
tion, yet  one  against  whom  so  much  appears  to  conspire,  —  the 
forces  of  fate,  of  evil  men  and  women,  of  the  elements  of 
nature,  of  political  conditions  that  only  seem  to  favor,  —  this 
story  is  known  by  every  reader  of  English  literature.  Few, 
if  any,  dramas  are  better  constructed  than  this  one,  and  it  is, 
therefore,  an  admirable  one  to  be  studied  by  those  who  are  inter- 
ested in  the  architecture  of  a  play.  Macbeth  excellently  illus- 
trates the  possibility  of  keeping  tense  the  interest  of  an  audience 
even  after  the  highest  possible  point  of  interest  seems  to  have 
been  reached,  for  the  reenacting  of  the  scenes  of  horror  in  the 
mind  of  sleep-walking  Lady  Macbeth  are  far  more  poignant  and 
terrifying  than  the  enacting  of  them  in  the  earlier  part  of  the 
play. 

Whatever  difference  of  opinion  there  may  be  as  to  the  relative 
rank  of  Antony  and  Cleopatra,  it  is  almost  universally  recognized 
that  in  this  play  the  teeming  richness,  the  overflowing  abun- 
dance of  Shakespeare's  mind,  is  shown  at  its  height.  Psy- 
chological analysis  never  again  went  farther  than  here ;  and  the 
beauty  of  hundreds  of  lines  is  a  perfect  beauty.  While  one 
feels  that  here  are  the  power  and  the  grandeur,  the  subtlety  and 
the  passion  of  Egypt  and  of  Rome,  yet  he  feels,  too,  that  here 


i6!^  .ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

is^iiim'afl  iKc-nbt'-tn-.the  little,  as  is  so  often  said  of  a  book, 
but  in  the  large.  The  author  of  this  play  has  caught  the  under- 
lying motives  and  the  moving  forces  in  the  life  of  the  race  for 
all  time,  and  has,  in  lines  of  marvelous  force  and  beauty,  for- 
ever fixed  them  here  for  all  men  to  ponder  and  to  profit  from. 
We  may  have  little  admiration  for  few,  perhaps  for  none,  of  the 
characters  in  the  play,  but  the  picturing  of  them,  and  the 
revealing  of  their  humanness  in  what  they  say  fascinate  and 
grip  us  in  every  scene.  Many  have  thought  that  there  is  no 
more  beautiful  scene  than  that  in  which  the  death  of  Cleopatra 
occurs.  The  play  is  not  easily  read;  but  he  who  masters  it 
will  have  acquired  vigor  of  mind  for  the  most  difficult  tasks 
that  the  interpretation  of  literature  may  present  to  him. 

Livy,  the  Latin,  and  Plutarch,  the  Greek,  had  written  ac- 
counts of  Coriolanus,  a  great  Roman  of  the  early  years  of  the 
fifth  century  B.C. ;  and  Alexandre  Hardy,  the  Frenchman, 
placed  a  play  concerning  him  upon  the  stage  in  1607.  But  it 
remained  for  Shakespeare  to  make  the  man  to  be  the  Titan  he 
is.  The  tragedy  in  the  life  of  Coriolanus  lies  in  the  struggle, 
within  an  inflexible  mind,  between  the  aristocratic  sentiment  of 
the  man  in  matters  of  public  concern  and  the  sense  of  obligation 
in  matters  of  domestic  life.  The  play  of  Coriolanus  is  Shake- 
speare's successful  attempt  to  picture  a  great  man,  sturdy,  ro- 
bust, uncovetous,  intensely  manly,  thoroughly  conscious  of 
his  personal  superiority,  yet  without  a  shred  of  the  sense  of 
humor,  and  without  the  humanizing  touch  of  sympathy  with 
the  inferior  man  in  society.  Coriolanus  refuses  to  obey  human 
instincts  lest  they  place  him  upon  a  level  with  the  members  of 
the  lower  castes  in  human  society.  Yet  he  is  chivalrous,  and 
we  constantly  regret  the  unpliant  nature  of  the*  intellect  which 
will  lead  to  the  sacrifice  of  all  that  he  loved  to  the  stubborn  pride 
of  political  rank.    And  there  are  other  attractive  characters:  the 


RENAISSANCE  LITERATURE  103 

faithful  Menenius,  the  gracious,  gentle  Virgilia,  the  high-spirited 
Valeria,  the  lof  ty-souled,  but  keen  and  pliant  Volumnia.  These 
are  ever-living  characters  in  the  pages  of  dramatic  literature. 

Many  have  considered  Timon  of  Athens  as  the  record  of  a 
highly  pessimistic  mood  of  the  author.  But  it  is  equally  as 
sensible  to  consider  it  a  dramatic  interpretation  of  a  mood  which 
the  author  saw  to  be  in  the  life  of  some  other  men.  One  wishes 
Shakespeare  had  had  as  little  part  in  the  making  of  this  play  as 
in  the  making  of  Titus  Andronicus ;  but  the  evidence  is  strong 
that  he  had  a  large  share  in  it.  Timon  is  a  man  of  noble  and 
generous  mind,  who  finds  other  men  base,  and,  turning  from  them 
in  bitter  anger,  pours  out  upon  their  baseness  the  most  virulent 
contempt  that  tongue  can  utter.  Yet  the  gloomy  bitterness 
of  the  spirit  of  the  play  is  redeemed  by  much  great  poetry. 

Romances.  —  Troilus  and  Cressida  is  based  upon  the  legends 
of  Troy,  and  is  concerned  with  a  woman's  unfaithfulness,  and 
with  soldierly  deeds.  Many  of  its  readers  dislike  the  play  most 
heartily.  Had  it  been  finished  by  its  author,  the  grandeur  of  a 
few  of  the  scenes  might  have  been  discernible  in  all.  The  great 
names  of  the  siege  of  Troy  appear  among  the  active  personages, 
— '  Ajax,  Achilles,  Hector,  and  others.  Chaucer  had,  in  the 
fourteenth  century,  treated  the  story  of  Troilus  and  Cressida, 
but  no  doubt  Shakespeare  was  more  indebted  to  Chapman's 
translation  of  the  Iliad  of  Homer.  Though  the  play  is  in 
large  part  a  mere  dialogue  scenario,  yet  Shakespeare  succeeds 
in  making  the  characters  appear  contemporary  with  us,  even  if 
their  date  is  from  1193  B.C.  to  1184  B.C.  Had  Hamlet  been 
a  playwriter,  perhaps  Troilus  and  Cressida  would  have  been 
the  sort  of  play  he  would  have  written. 

Pericles,  Prince  of  Tyre,  though  it  has  been  successfully 
staged,  is  not  a  popular  reading  play.  If  there  is  an  exception 
to  the  statement  we  have  made  that  Shakespeare  wrote  the 


104  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

Romances  primarily  to  please  himself,  rather  than  the  public  or 
the  stage  manager,  that  exception  would  be  Pericles.  Few  lines 
of  it  are  such  as  men  will  cherish  in  their  memories,  and  there 
seems  not  to  have  been  much  more  than  merely  mechanical 
work  done  upon  the  story  by  the  author  of  The  Tempest  and 
of  Antony  and  Cleopatra.  Still  the  fact  that  the  play  is  full  of 
that  which  is  unpleasant  is  not  evidence  that  the  man  with  the 
most  seeing  eyes  of  his  race  may  not  have  given  much  care  and 
thought  to  the  play. 

Cymbeline,  along  with  King  Lear,  is  a  "  British  "  play.  Its 
time  is  that  of  the  Roman  invasion.  Shakespeare  cares  nothing 
for  anachronisms  in  this  play,  as  he  cares  nothing  for  them  else- 
where. Hence  we  have,  in  the  time  of  the  Roman  invasion  of 
Britain,  men  called  "  Frenchmen  "  and  others  called  "  Dutch- 
men." But  the  author's  purpose  is  to  write  something  dra- 
matic, and  all  is  grist  that  comes  into  his  hopper.  In  the  main 
the  chronicle  or  historical  plays  of  Shakespeare  are  good  his- 
tory ;  but  King  Lear  and  Cymbeline  are  both  mythical.  Cym- 
beline  would  be  well  worth  while  if  there  were  nothing  good  in 
it  but  the  still  popular  song 

Hark,  hark !  the  lark  at  heaven's  gate  sings, 

And  Phoebus  'gins  arise, 
His  steeds  to  water  at  those  springs 

On  chaliced  flowers  that  lies ; 
And  winking  Mary-buds  begin 

To  ope  their  golden  eyes ; 

With  everything  that  pretty  is, 

My  lady  sweet,  arise : 

Arise,  arise. 

But  when  to  song  is  added  the  thought  of  the  following  verses, 
we  feel  that  there  is  much,  indeed,  that  will  make  the  play  en- 
dure: 


RENAISSANCE  LITERATURE  105 

Fear  no  more  the  heat  o'  the  sun, 

Nor  the  furious  winter's  rages; 
Thou  thy  worldly  task  hast  done, 

Home  art  gone,  and  ta'en  thy  wages. 
Golden  lads  and  girls  all  must. 

As  chimney-sweepers,  come  to  dust. 

Fear  no  more  the  frown  o'  the  great, 

Thou  art  past  the  tyrant's  stroke ; 
Care  no  more  to  clothe  and  eat ; 

To  thee  the  reed  is  as  the  oak : 
The  sceptre,  learning,  physic  must 

All  follow  this,  and  come  to  dust.  ^ 

Fear  no  more  the  lightning-flash 

Nor  the  all-dreaded  thunder-stone;  ^ 

Fear  not  slander,  censure  rash; 
Thou  hast  finish' d  joy  and  moan; 

All  lovers  young,  all  lovers  must 

Consign  to  thee,  and  come  to  dust. 

No  exorciser  harm  thee  ! 
Nor  no  witchcraft  charm  thee ! 
Ghost  unlaid  forbear  thee ! 
Nothing  ill  come  near  thee ! 
Quiet  consummation  have ; 
And  renowned  be  thy  grave ! 

That  human  destiny  is  controlled  by  laws  which  guide  the 
universe,  and  not  by  the  capricious  will  of  man,  is  a  common 
theme  of  Shakespeare,  and  in  The  Winter^ s  Tale  the  theme  is 
very  straightforwardly  illustrated.  This  play  is  very  much 
lacking  in  "  modern  technique,"  but  it  has  been,  nevertheless, 
a  famous  success  again  and  again  upon  the  modern  stage.  There 
is  a  great  deal  of  picturesqueness  about  many  of  its  scenes,  which 
picturesqueness  to  a  large  degree  accounts  for  its  popularity. 
The  story,  too,  is  full  of  what  the  newspaper  man  calls  "  human 
interest."    It  was  written  late  in  the  career  of  its  author,  1610. 


lo6  ENGLISH    LITERATURE 

Shakespeare,  it  would  seem,  wrote  no  plays  after  The  Tempest, 
(though  he  had  some  share  after  this  in  the  writing  of  King 
Henry  VIII,  or  All  is  True),  hence  his  final  energy  seems  to  have 
been  fully  exerted  in  The  Tempest.  Much  has  been  made  of  the 
symbolical  allegory,  of  which  some  men  find  more  or  less  in  all 
inventive  literature.  We  should  prefer  to  call  The  Tempest 
in  many  respects  an  analogue,  rather  than  an  allegory,  of  life. 
The  lines  which  life  follows  are  not  here  followed,  but  their 
direction  is  paralleled  and  their  tendencies  made  clear  by  this 
heightened  picture  of  the  action  of  men,  which  we  call  the  drama 
of  The  Tempest.  Drama,  after  all,  does  not  give  a  picture  of  life, 
but  a  vision  of  it.  This  play  is  one  of  the  best  of  illustrations  of 
the  fact  that  the  requirements  of  critics  according  to  the  **  prin- 
ciples "  of  modern  technique  do  not  always  apply  to  Shakespeare. 
If,  for  example,  we  had  the  so-called  "  exposition  "  at  the  open- 
ing of  this  play,  so  that  we  should  have  in  our  possession  all 
that  was  necessary  to  understand  all  the  action  which  is  to  fol- 
low, as  the  technicians  claim  we  should  have,  then  there  would 
be  in  the  play  no  place  for  Stephano,  for  Trinculo,  for  Caliban, 
or  for  Ariel,  with  all  the  delight  that  accompanies  the  exhibition 
of  these  characters.  Two,  at  least,  of  the  most  original  crea- 
tions in  literature,  Caliban  and  the  dainty  Ariel,  would  be  miss- 
ing from  our  memories ;  and  we  could  ill  spare  them,  especially 
the  songs  of  Ariel. 

QUESTIONS   AND   TOPICS  FOR   DISCUSSION 

1.  What  was  the  Renaissance?     When  did  it  begin  in  England? 

2.  Who  were  the  Oxford  Reformers,  and  what  did  they  want  to  do? 

3.  For  what  should  Tyndale  be  remembered? 

4.  What  does  Toilers  Miscellany  suggest  to  you?     Give  its  date. 

5.  Tell  all  you  can  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney  and  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh. 

6.  For  what  is  Francis  Bacon  famous? 

7.  What  is  "Euphuism"? 


RENAISSANCE  LITERATURE  107 

8.  Name  three  of  Edmund  Spenser's  works,  and  briefly  characterize 
two  of  the  three. 

9.  Quote  a  brief  passage  from  Spenser's  chief  work. 

10.  Name  in  their  time  order  the  forms  of  drama  which,  in  England, 
preceded  the  Shakespearean  play. 

11.  Name  the  "first  Enghsh  Comedy" ;   the  "first  Enghsh  Tragedy." 

12.  Who  were  Shakespeare's  "immediate  predecessors"?  The  most 
important  one  among  them? 

13.  State  the  known  facts  of  Shakespeare's  life. 

14.  Characterize  his  theater. 

15.  (a)  How  many  plays  did  Shakespeare  probably  have  a  hand  in 
writing?  (b)  Name  the  groups  into  which  they  may  be  classified.  Give 
these  names  in  their  general  time  order. 

16.  Briefly  characterize  two  of  Shakespeare's  comedies  and  three  of  his 
tragedies. 

17.  Name  five  persons  in  each  of  three  plays  of  Shakespeare,  and  give  a 
concise  statement  of  the  chief  traits  of  each. 

18.  Quote  Shakespeare's  Sonnet  XXX;  also  a  song  from  one  of  his 
plays. 

19.  What  two  types  of  Uterature  besides  the  drama  were  quite  prominent 
during  the  period  of  the  Renaissance? 

READING   LIST  FOR   THE   PERIOD   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

More,  Utopia    (originally    printed   in   Latin).     Translated   into 

English  by  Ralph  Robinson. 
SroNEY,  The  Defence  of  Poesy.     Edited  by  A.  S.  Cook. 

Bacon,  Essays.     Edited  by  W.  Aldis  Wright. 

Spenser,  The  Faerie  Queen.     Globe  Edition. 

Marlowe,  Tamburlaine.    Edited  by  Havelock  Ellis. 

Shakespeare,    Macbeth,  Merchant  of  Venice,  As   You  Like  It,  Hamlet, 
Julius  Ccesar,  King  Henry  IV,  The  Tempest,  A  Midsummer 

Night's  Dream.    The  Academy  Series. 

HELPFUL  BOOKS  ON  THE  PERIOD 

A  History  of  Elizabethan  Literature,  George  Saintsbury.     (The  Macmillan 

Company.) 
English  Writers,  Vol.  XI,  Henry  Morley.     (Cassell  &  Co.) 


lo8  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

The  Italian  Renaissance  in  England,  Lewis  Einstein.     (The  Macmillan 

Company.). 
Elizabethan  Literature,  J.  M.  Robertson.     (Williams  &  Norgate.) 
English  Literature  during  the  Lifetime  of  Shakespeare,  F.  E.  Schelling.   (Henry 

Holt  &  Co.) 
History  of  English  Literature,  Vol.  Ill,  Bemhard  Ten  Brink.     (George  Bell 

&  Sons.) 
Shakespeare's  Life  and  Work,  Sidney  Lee.     (The  Macmillan  Company.) 
Shakespearean  Tragedy,  A.  C.  Bradley.     (The  Macmillan  Company.) 
The  Highway  of  Letters,  Chapters  iv  to  xiii  inclusive,  Thomas  Archer.     (Cas- 

sell  &  Co.,  Limited.) 
See  also  Bibliography  on  The  Drama,  in  Chapter  IX,  pages  365  and  366. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  LITERATURE   OF  THE   SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

1613-1700 

The  Puritan  Movement.  —  During  the  sixteenth  century  there 
had  arisen  in  England  a  group  of  Protestants  who  soon  came 
to  be  called  Puritans  because  they  demanded  a  "  purer  "  wor- 
ship than  that  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  By  "purer" 
they  meant  "  simpler,"  but  to  simplify  meant,  to  them,  to 
abandon  all  the  ceremonies  in  use  in  the  Catholic  worship. 
The  best  and  most  intelligent  among  these  Puritans  desired 
"purity"  to  extend  to  all  the  doings  of  daily  life,  as  well  as  to 
the  worship  of  the  church,  and  they  soon  came  to  enroll  among 
their  numbers  many  men  eminent  in  the  affairs  of  state  as  well 
as  of  church.  These  eminent  men  desired  to  control  the  state 
according  to  principles  that  were  "pure"  and  single-minded. 
They  had  a  great  share  in  the  overthrow  of  the  Stuart  kings 
during  the  seventeenth  century,  and,  under  Cromwell,  they 
came  into  full  control  of  the  nation's  political  affairs.  This  was 
a  quarter  of  a  century  after  a  certain  part  of  the  Puritans,  called 
Separatists,  had  sent  some  of  their  members  to  the  shores  of 
America  as  Pilgrims.  The  whole  literature  of  the  seventeenth 
century  mirrors  the  struggles  between  men  of  the  Puritan  type 
who  desired  to  lead  the  "  simple  life,"  and  those  who  preferred 
the  more  irregular  life  which,  the  student  of  history  knows,  the 
Stuart  kings  after  James  I  desired  themselves  and  their  friends 
and  followers  to  lead.     John  Milton,  who  said  that  he  wished  to 

109 


no  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

live  as  if  ever  in  the  great  Taskmaster's  eye,  represented  the 
Puritans  better  than  any  other  writer.  The  most  refined  of 
those  who  represented  the  authors  opposed  to  the  program  of 
the  Puritans  were  the  writers  whom  in  this  chapter  we  shall 
call  the  "  Caroline  lyrists."  And  John  Dryden  might  well  be 
said  to  stand  between  Milton  and  the  opponents  of  the  Puritans, 
for  he  at  times  represented  Puritan  ideas  and  at  other  times 
ideas  much  more  pleasing  to  the  life  of  the  Court. 

I.  To  Milton 

Groups  of  seventeenth-century  writers.  —  While  Shakespeare 
and  some  of  his  contemporaries  among  dramatic  writers  of 
the  Elizabethan  days  survived  and  worked  for  over  a  decade 
into  the  seventeenth  century,  yet  they  so  evidently  belong  to 
an  age  different  from  that  of  the  Puritan  movement  in  church 
and  state,  in  the  days  of  that  movement's  strength,  that  we 
do  not  consider  this  century  of  Puritanism  in  Literature  as 
beginning  until  the  time  when  Shakespeare  ceased  to  write, 
1613. 

The  dramatists  who  continued  to  write  after  Shakespeare's 
death  we  call  the  "  successors  of  Shakespeare."  Character 
writers  followed  them ;  also  the  lyric  poets  of  the  days  of  the 
Charleses ;  religious  writers,  and  philosophers  were  numerous ; 
but  above  all  of  these  stood  John  Milton  and  John  Dryden,  who 
were,  along  with  Chaucer,  Spenser,  and  Shakespeare,  among 
the  greatest  of  English  men  of  letters. 

Shakespeare's  successors.  —  The  leading  successors  of 
Shakespeare  were  Thomas  Middleton,  John  Webster,  Francis 
Beaumont,  John  Fletcher,  Ben  Jonson,  John  Ford,  and  '*  modest 
and  manly  "  Philip  Massinger.  Some  of  them  had  helped 
Shakespeare  in  the  writing  of  some  of  his  thirty-seven  plays. 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher  between  them  wrote  at  least  fifty-two 


THE  LITERATURE  OF  THE   SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY     III 

plays ;  but  it  is  not  quantity  that  is  significant  in  literature. 
Ben  Jonson  is  the  greatest  among  these  successors  of  the  great 
tragic  master,  though  a  few  of  the  plays  of  some  of  the  others 
are  worthy  of  special  note.  Among  these  are  The  Witch  and 
Women  beware  Women,  by  Middleton;  The  White  Devil  and 
The  Duchess  of  Malji,  by  Webster ;  The  Faithful  Shepherdess,  by 
Fletcher,  and  Broken  Heart,  by  Ford. 

The  chief  difficulty  with  all  of  these  men,  including  Ben 
Jonson,  was  that  they  were  too  highly  self-conscious.  They 
were  not  absorbed  in  the  subject  matter  of  their  work,  not 
lost  in  their  attention  to  the  breathless  process  of  the  action 
of  their  plays  or  of  the  development  of  the  characters  under 
their  gaze,  or  in  the  vivid  reality  of  the  dialogue  of  those  char- 
acters. They  were  too  intent  upon  showing  themselves,  upon 
making  an  impression  that  they,  the  authors,  were  of  conse- 
quence. They  were  too  intent  upon  "  making  a  hit  "  with  the 
public  by  "  theatricaf  successes."  All  of  this  kept  them  from 
writing  sincerely  from  themselves.  They  wrote  extravagantly, 
therefore.  They  became  "  decadent,"  in  the  sense  that  their 
work  showed  undue  interest  in  style  and  in  a  kind  of  subject 
matter  that  was  no  longer  important. 

Ben  Jonson  wrote  many  delightful  Masques  and  three  splen- 
did comedies.  The  comedies  were  named  Volpone  the  Fox, 
The  Silent  Woman,  and  The  Alchemist.  Later  he  wrote  the 
gentle  pastoral  drama  entitled  The  Sad  Shepherd,  His  Catiline 
and  Bartholomew  Fair  were  popular  in  their  day,  and  had  some- 
thing to  do  with  his  appointment  as  Poet  Laureate.  Other 
plays  of  his  are  worth  mentioning,  if  for  no  other  reason 
than  that  their  very  titles  indicated  the  trend  of  the  drama. 
Every  Man  in  His  Humor  and  Every  Man  out  of  His  Humor 
and  Cynthia's  Revels  suggest  that  dramatists  were  becoming 
interested,  not  so  much  in  characters  as  in  what  those  char- 


112  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

acters^  because  of  their  temperaments,  might  chance  to  do. 
Yet,  as  out  of  the  decay  of  other  things  something  new  arises, 
so  out  of  this  decadent  interest  in  and  close  attention  to  typi- 
cal temperaments  and  their  manners,  rather  than  to  vital  char- 
acters, there  arose  a  type  of  writing  quite  distinctive  in  English 
literature,  though  it  had  had  vogue  in  the  late  days  of  the 
literature  of  ancient  Greece ;  namely,  character  writing. 

Character  writing.  —  The  "  character "  was  not  what  we 
to-day  call  a  "  character  sketch."  It  was  a  distinct  type  of 
literature,  just  as  the  epic  and  the  sonnet  are  distinct  in  them- 
selves from  other  types.  The  character  was  a  brief  expository 
description  of  a  type  of  human  being,  not  of  an  individual. 
It  was  an  attempt  to  show  the  qualities  of  a  class  of  people 
by  saying  in  brief,  epigrammatic  form  how  a  representative  of 
the  class  shows  himself.  The  chief  character  writers  were  Sir 
Thomas  Overbury,  Joseph  Hall,  and  John  Earle,  the  last- 
named  being  the  best  of  them.  One  example  from  John  Earle 
will  illustrate  what  these  writers  succeeded  in  doing : 

A  CHILD 

Is  a  man  in  a  small  letter,  yet  the  best  copy  of  Adam  before  he  tasted 
of  Eve  or  of  the  apple ;  and  he  is  happy  whose  small  practice  in  the  world 
can  only  write  his  character.  He  is  nature's  fresh  picture  newly  drawn  in 
oil,  which  time,  and  much  handhng,  dims  and  defaces.  His  soul  is  yet  a 
white  paper  unscribbled  with  observations  of  the  world,  wherewith,  at  length, 
it  becomes  a  blurred  notebook.  He  is  purely  happy,  because  he  knows  no 
evil,  nor  hath  made  means  by  sin  to  be  acquainted  with  misery.  He  ar- 
rives not  at  the  mischief  of  being  wise,  nor  endures  evils  to  come,  by  fore- 
seeing them.  He  kisses  and  loves  all,  and,  when  the  smart  of  the  rod  is  past, 
smiles  on  his  beater.  Nature  and  his  parents  alike  dandle  him,  and  'tice 
him  on  with  a  bait  of  sugar  to  a  draught  of  wormwood.  He  plays  yet,  like 
a  young  prentice  the  first  day,  and  is  not  come  to  his  task  of  melancholy. 
All  the  language  he  speaks  yet  is  tears;  and  they  serve  him  well  enough 
to  express  his  necessity.    His  hardest  labor  is  his  tongue,  as  if  he  were  loath 


THE  LITERATURE  OF  THE   SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY      II3 

to  use  so  deceitful  an  organ;  and  he  is  best  company  with  it  when  he  can 
but  prattle.  We  laugh  at  his  foolish  sports,  but  his  game  is  our  earnest; 
and  his  drums,  rattles,  and  hobby-horses,  but  the  emblems  and  mocking 
of  man's  business.  His  father  hath  writ  him  as  his  own  little  story,  wherein 
he  reads  those  days  of  his  Ufe  that  he  cannot  remember,  and  sighs  to  see 
what  innocence  he  hath  out-lived.  The  elder  he  grows,  he  is  a  stair  lower 
from  God ;  and,  like  his  first  father,  much  worse  in  his  breeches.  He  is  the 
Christian's  example,  and  the  old  man's  relapse ;  the  one  imitates  his  pure- 
ness,  and  the  other  falls  into  his  simpHcity.  Could  he  put  off  his  body  with 
his  little  coat,  he  had  got  eternity  without  a  burden,  and  exchanged  but 
one  heaven  for  another. 

Caroline  lyrists. — The  lyric  poets  of  the  time  of  Charles  I 
and  Charles  II  are  called  Caroline  poets.  The  chief  of  them 
were  Robert  Herrick,  Richard  Crashaw,  Henry  Vaughan,  Francis 
Quarles,  and  George  Herbert.  Their  poems  were  mainly  of 
love  and  of  religion.  Herrick's  Corinna  and  Herbert's  series  of 
poems  under  the  general  title  of  The  Temple  are  the  best  known 
from  this  group.  In  our  day  there  has  been  a  considerable 
revival  of  interest  in  both  Herrick  and  Herbert,  as  there  has 
been  in  the  satirist,  Dr.  John  Donne,  who  was  a  trifle  older 
than  they.  Much  of  their  poetry  is  very  quaint,  much  of  it 
dainty  and  lovely,  but  not  a  great  deal  is  highly  passion- 
ate. They  looked  upon  both  their  love  and  their  religion 
reflectively  rather  than  with  passionate  emotion.  Because 
of  this,  some  of  them  have  been  called  metaphysical  poets. 
Their  *'  metaphysics  "  consisted  of  curious  and  far-fetched 
comparisons  and  contrasts,  however,  rather  than  of  very  pro- 
found thinking. 

These  lines  are  representative  of  Herbert,  — 

Sweet  day !  so  cool,  so  calm,  so  bright,  — 

The  bridal  of  the  earth  and  sky ; 
The  dew  shall  weep  thy  fall  to-night ; 

For  thou  must  die. 


114  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

Religious  writers.  —  No  theological  writer  of  the  period 
equaled  the  beauty  and  stateliness  of  the  thought  and  style  of 
the  author  of  The  Laws  of  Ecclesiastical  Polity ^  a  book  written 
as  a  defense  of  the  Anglican  Church  against  the  Puritans. 
That  author  was  Richard  Hooker,  who  died  in  1600  and  hence 
belonged  to  the  period  of  the  Renaissance.  John  Ruskin  has 
claimed  that  his  own  wonderful  style  owes  its  qualities  to  the 
King  James  Version  of  the  Bible,  which  was  printed  in  161 1 ,  and 
to  the  writings  of  Hooker.  But  Jeremy  Taylor,  the  author  of 
Holy  Living  and  Dying,  which  was  published  about  the  time 
of  the  execution  of  Charles  I,  1649,  has  had  a  much  larger  num- 
ber of  readers  than  Hooker.  His  work  is  very  thoughtful,  but 
is  also  v^^ry  eloquent,  abounding  in  passages  of  the  very  best  de- 
scription in  the  language.  The  Holy  Living  and  Dying  became 
a  household  treasure  in  the  homes  of  England,  though  perhaps 
not  quite  so  much  so  as  Richard  Baxter's  SaiiiVs  Everlasting 
Rest.  Hooker,  Taylor,  and  Baxter  may  well  be  called  both 
theological  and  philosophical,  as  may  Sir  Thomas  Browne, 
whose  Religio  Medici  has  been  read  the  world  over,  and  as  may 
Robert  Burton,  whose  Anatomy  of  Melancholy  has  been  some- 
what less  popular,  and  Thomas  Fuller,  whose  Worthies  of  Eng- 
land still  attracts  the  general  reader. 

But  the  first  really  great  name  following  that  of  Shakespeare 
is  that  of  John  Milton. 

II.  John  Milton 

Singer  and  seer.  —  Milton  was  brought  up  in  a  singing  age, 
but  none  in  his  day  was  so  great  a  singer  as  he.  He  was 
chiefly  a  singer  in  his  youth.  His  time  was  not  a  time  of  great 
thinkers,  yet  the  world  has  rarely  seen  so  independent  and 
so  open-minded  a  thinker  as  he  was  in  his  middle  years. 
Soon  after  the  middle  years  of  his  life,  the  great  singer  and 


John  Milton 


THE   LITERATURE  OF  THE   SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY     1 15 

thinker  became  combined  in  him  and  the  great  poet  Milton 
was  the  result. 

Milton  was  born  in  London  in  the  year  1608.  His  family 
were  Puritans.  He  was  educated  at  Cambridge  University, 
and  shortly  after.wards  went  to  the  village  of  Horton,  west  of 
London,  to  live  with  his  father  during  the  latter's  declining 
days.  Here  his  singing  period  was  spent.  In  1638  Milton  went 
to  Italy.  WhUe  there  he  met  the  astronomer  Galileo.  Return- 
ing to  England,  he  began  the  period  of  his  fighting  for  free 
institutions:  freedom  of  worship,  freedom  of  the  press,  and 
freedom  in  the  election  of  kings  and  magistrates,  —  his  age  of 
thinking.  In  the  midst  of  all  this  struggling  for  liberty,  Milton 
became  totally  blind.  Then,  after  1669,  came  the  period  in  his 
life  during  which  two  great  epics  and  one  great  drama  issued 
from  his  pen,  the  period  of  the  truly  great  poet  who  was  both 
singer  and  thinker. 

We  shall  not  mention  all  of  the  works  of  Milton,  but  only 
those  which  a  modern  student  must  know.  During  his  singing 
days,  Milton  wrote,  among  other  poems,  V  Allegro,  II  Pen- 
seroso,  Comus,  and  Lycidas.  During  his  days  as  militant 
thinker,  he  wrote  the  Tractate  (or  Tract)  on  Education,  and 
Areopagitica.  During  the  days  when  the  philosopher  and  the 
singer  in  verse  were  welded  into  the  great  poet,  he  wrote  Para- 
dise Lost,  Paradise  Regained,  and  Samson  Agonistes. 

The  Minor  Poems.  —  V  Allegro,  II  Penseroso,  Lycidas,  and 
Comus  have  by  tradition  come  to  be  called  Milton's  "  Minor 
Poems."  But  many  a  poet  who  has  achieved  immortality  by 
works  of  lesser  merit  might  well  have  longed  for  such  productions 
as  the  minor  poems  of  Milton  to  be  reckoned  as  his  major  works. 

U  Allegro  and  //  Penseroso  are  companion  poems,  the  one 
giving  the  attitude  to  life  of  the  man  of  lightsome'  spirit,  the 
other  that  of  the  man  of  |)ensively  melancholy  spirit.     They 


Il6  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

are  almost  identical  in  structure  and  must,  then,  have  been 
written  in  a  highly  self-conscious  mood.  A  careful  study  of 
the  structure  of  these  poems  will  be  certain  to  alter  the 
opinion  of  the  man  who  believes  that  it  is  only  "  fine  frenzy  " 
which  can  make  poetry,  and  that  the  poet  pays  no  attention 
to  plan  and  carefully  wrought  workmanship.  One  who  will 
analyze  these  as  structural  compositions  will  forever  possess 
the  wholesome  knowledge  that  in  good  poetry  there  is  organic 
form,  just  as  in  excellent  prose  there  may  be  beauties  of  diction 
and  phrase. 

Each  of  these  poems  is  reflective.  Few  lines  in  literature 
are  more  highly  prized  by  the  man  of  academic  bent  of  mind 
than  the  following  from  //  Penseroso,  — 

But  let  my  due  feet  never  fail 
To  walk  the  studious  cloister's  pale, 
And  love  the  high  embowSd  roof. 
With  antique  pillars  massy-proof, 
And  storied  windows  richly  dight. 
Casting  a  dim  religious  light  .  .  . 

These  two  companion  poems  are  famous  for  many  and  often- 
quoted  phrases,  both  of  imagery  and  of  thought.  Nothing  more 
unaffected  can  be  said  of  them  than  was  said  by  Walter  Savage 
Landor:  **  Whenever  I  come  to  the  end  of  these  poems,  or 
either  of  them,  it  is  always  with  a  sigh  of  regret." 

Lycidas  is  an  elegy  upon  the  death  of  Edmund  King, 
a  Fellow  of  Christ's  College,  Cambridge.  It  has  been  said 
that  nothing  higher  in  English  poesy  has  been  attained  than 
the  levels  reached  in  this  poem.  It  certainly  is  magically 
beautiful.  Yet  to  call  it  an  elegy  upon  the  death  of  some  one 
man  is  rather  misleading.  A  truer  description  of  the  poem 
would  be.  that  it  is  a  tremendous  denunciation  of  the  repul- 
sively  evil   practices   which   had  crept   into   the  established 


THE  LITERATURE  OF  THE   SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY     1 17 

ecclesiastical  system  of  that  time  in  England.  A  "  scramble 
at  the  shearer's  feast  "  is  as  apt  a  picture  of  the  activity  of 
numerous  members  of  that  system  as  it  would  be  of  the  activity 
in  the  modem  stock  exchange.  Lycidas  is  a  poem  of  high  dis- 
tinction, and  not  the  least  of  its  distinguished  services  to  men 
consists  in  its  being  the  forerunner  of  the  Thyrsis  of  Matthew 
Arnold  and  the  Adonais  of  Shelley.  Both  these  nineteenth- 
century  poems  should  be  read  along  with  Lycidas,  as  should 
also  the  Threnody  of  Emerson,  the  American  poet. 

Comus  is  the  best  of  all  masques.  Some  critics  have  claimed 
superiority  for  a  few  of  Ben  Jonson's  masques  in  so  far  as 
picturesqueness  is  concerned,  but  no  one  considers  any  other 
masque  equal  to  the  Comus  in  poetic  qualities.  The  theme  of 
temptation  was  strongly  working  in  Milton's  mind  as  early  as 
the  time  of  the  writing  of  this  poem.  It  was  worked  out  in 
elaborate  fashion  in  both  the  grand  epics  of  his  later  days. 
Milton  was  a  Puritan  in  thought,  though  technically  what 
was  then  called  an  "  Independent  "  in  the  politics  of  the 
day.  Here,  in  Comus,  frivolous  men  of  the  second  quarter  of 
the  seventeenth  century  were  taught  the  value  of  the  victory 
of  temperance  over  excess,  —  the  rich  beauty  of  a  life  in  which 
the  spirit  of  true  purity  victoriously  meets  the  temptations  of 
the  bodily  life. 

Milton's  prose.  —  We  have  said  that  the  theme  of  tempta- 
tion was  coming  to  the  forefront  in  Milton's  thought  when  he 
wrote  Comus.  The  good  of  the  state  as  an  ideal  was  also  becom- 
ing uppermost  at  this  time.  It  is  the  good  of  the  state  for  which 
he  strenuously  fought  in  several  prose  works.  Some  of  the 
prose  works  treated  (i)  of  ecclesiastical  liberty,  others  (2)  of 
freedom  of  opinion  in  all  matters,  and  still  others  (3)  of  certain 
civil  affairs  that  were  of  more  importance  in  his  day  than  they 
now  are.     Some  of  the  pamphlets  written  in  relation  to  those 


Ii8  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

civil  affairs  spread  his  fame  over  the  entire  continent  of  Europe. 
Yet  it  is  only  the  pamphlets  in  the  second  group  that  are  of 
permanent  value,  and  that  can,  therefore,  be  termed  literary. 
Among  these  the  more  consequential  were  the  Tractate  on  Edu- 
cation, and  the  Areopagiiica:  a  Speech  for  the  Liberty  of  Un- 
licensed Printing.  .  Each  of  these  is  filled  with  the  passion  of  a 
great  controversialist. 

The  Tract  on  Education  aided  nobly  in  relieving  education 
from  the  burden  of  teaching  by  abstraction  rather  than  by 
concrete  illustration,  and  from  the  bondage  of  routine.  The 
Areopagitica  is  the  best  of  refutations  of  the  often-repeated 
statement  that  Milton  had  no  humor,  for  in  it  there  are  not 
infrequent  gleams  of  that  saving  grace.  In  this  pamphlet  there 
are  also  loyal  praise  of  the  majesty  of  the  great  city  of  London 
and  an  intense  devotion  to  the  destiny  of  England.  Greater  in 
importance  than  these  things,  however,  is  the  eloquent  and 
closely  reasoned  claim  and  plea  made  for  the  right  and  justice 
of  freedom  of  thought  and  of  utterance.  The  Areopagitica, 
like  the  Minor  Poems,  is  filled  with  what,  are  now  "  familiar 
quotations."  One  among  them  is,  ''  As  good  almost  kill  a  man 
as  kill  a  good  book."  These  prose  works  placed  Milton  with 
Raleigh,  Hooker,  Browne,  Bacon,  and  Dryden  as  the  masters 
of  modern  English  prose  before  the  eighteenth  century. 

Milton's  great  epics,  —r  It  is  quite  probable  that  no  other  man 
has  known  the  "  Authorized  "  or  King  James  Version  of  the 
Bible  so  well  as  Milton  knew  it,  and  while  thirty  years  of 
general  reading  provided  most  of  the  materials  gathered  for 
Paradise  Lost,  yet  that  Bible  was  the  truer  and  deeper  inspira- 
tion of  this  vast,  magnificent,  and  altogether  wonderful  poem. 
Puritanism,  in  all  the  broad  senses  of  the  term,  was,  more  than 
all  else,  responsible  for  the  chief  ideas  of  the  poem,  but  the 
renaissance  movement  was  responsible  for  most  of  the  imagery, 


THE   LITERATURE  OF  THE   SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY     1 19 

for  the  classical  form,  and  even  for  many  of  the  ideas.  As  the 
poet  Keats  later  showed,  the  Satan  of  Paradise  Lost  is  rather 
the  Titan  of  Greek  mythology  than  the  evil  spirit  of  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures. 

Milton  intended  in  this  poem,  as  he  said,  to  "  justify  the 
ways  of  God  to  man.'.'  It  is  often  thought,  because  of  this 
statement,  that  he  meant  to  argue  men  into  certain  theo- 
logical beliefs.  But,  though  he  w^as  a  great  controversialist 
in  his  prose  writings,  and  though  the  Calvinistic  theology 
intrudes  itself  into  his  Paradise  and  Heaven  and  gives  sur- 
passing sublimity  to  the  thought  of  the  poem,  yet  his  chief 
intention  was,  by  imagery,  by  describing,  and  by  telling  of 
story,  to  lead  men  to  see  that  certain  truths  concerning  man, 
God,  and  destiny  can  neither  be  controverted  nor  evaded. 
In  fact  he  so  disliked  dogmatic  speculation  that  he  satirizes 
the  devils  as  entertaining  themselves  with  such  speculation 
when  they 

reasoned  high 
Of  providence,  foreknowledge,  will  and  fate, 
Fixed  fate,  free  will,  foreknowledge  absolute, 
And  found  no  end  in  wandering  mazes  lost. 

Such  is  the  radiant  beauty  of  many  hundreds  of  lines  of 
Paradise  Lost  that  one  hesitates  to  quote  any  as  examples,  lest 
the  reader  think  one  has  overlooked  other  passages  of  more 
resplendent  sublimity.  Perhaps  the  passage  in  which  Satan 
is  represented  as  struggling  through  the  welter  of  chaos  is  as 
brilliant  as  any.  In  it  occur  the  lines  in  which  Satan  is  said  to 
see 

Far  off  th'  empyreal  Heaven,  extended  wide 
In  circuit,  undetermin'd  square  or  round. 
With  opal  towers  and  battlements  adorn'd 
Of  living  sapphire,  once  his  native  seat ; 


I20  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

And  fast  by,  hanging  in  a  golden  chain, 
This  pendent  world,  in  bigness  as  a  star 
Of  smallest  magnitude  close  by  the  moon. 

"  This  pendent  world,"  however,  is  a  part  of  the  whole  starry 
universe,  and  Satan  has  to  go  to  the  center  of  the  glittering 
galaxy  before  he  arrives  at  the  Earth. 

The  description  of  Satan,  too,  —  he  who  is  not  less  than  arch- 
angel ruined,  —  is  unsurpassed,  — 

shone 
Above  them  all  th'  arch-angel ;   but  his  face 
Deep  scars  of  thunder  had  intrench'd,  and  care 
Sat  on  his  faded  cheek,  but  under  brows 
Of  dauntless  courage  and  considerate  pride 
Waiting  revenge :   cruel  his  eye,  .  .  < 

No  more  space  can  be  given  to  quotation  here ;  but  the  entire 
passage  in  Book  I  will  repay  all  study  that  one  can  give  it. 

The  theme  of  Paradise  Lost  is  the  Temptation  and  Fall  of  man ; 
and  the  theme  of  Paradise  Regained  is  the  Temptation  and 
Victory  of  man  through  Christ.  Paradise  Lost  had  been 
published  in  1667.  Paradise  Regained  was  published  in  1670. 
Milton  had  handed  to  a  young  Quaker  friend,  Thomas  Ellwood. 
the  manuscript  of  the  first  of  these  two  poems.  After  reading 
it,  Ellwood  returned  the  manuscript  with  the  comment  and 
query,  "  Thou  hast  said  much  here  of  Paradise  lost,  but  what 
hast  thou  to  say  of  Paradise  found?  "  A  year  later  Milton  put 
into  the  hands  of  his  friend  the  manuscript  of  the  second  of  the 
poems,  saying  "  This  is  owing  to  you." 

Paradise  Regained  is  a  gentle  poem,  strongly  contrasting  in 
spirit  and  style  with  its  great  and  older  companion.  Milton 
had  had  in  mind  the  idea  of  the  older  poem  before  he  left  the 
halls  of  Cambridge  university.  The  grandeur  of  the  concep- 
tion and  the  fervor  of  its  thought  had  been  long  brooded  upon, 


THE   LITERATURE  OF  THE   SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY     1 21 

and  its  author  purposely  spared  no  rich  adornment  in  presenting 
it.  But  his  purpose  in  the  later  epic  was,  with  severe  simplicity, 
to  impress  the  lesson  that  Paradise  is  to  be  achieved  by  man 
only  through  the  bearing  of  temptation  in  the  patient  spirit  of 
Christ,  biding  the  time  and  will  of  the  Father.  Milton  seemed 
to  have  thought  that  any  stirring  animation  of  feeling  and  any 
decorative  wording  would  draw  attention  away  from  the  direct- 
ness of  this  lesson,  and  hence  in  Paradise  Regained  we  have 
"  probably  the  most  unadorned  poem  extant  in  any  language." 
As  an  artistic  structure  it  is  relatively  perfect,  but  rarely  does 
the  reader  find  in  it  either  the  majesty  or  the  rich  and  free 
adornment  of  the  other  epic.  The  vision  of  all ''  the  kingdoms  of 
the  world  and  the  glory  of  them  "  in  the  third  and  fourth  books 
lifts  us  to  the  level. of  the  poesy  of  Paradise  Lost,  but  only  an 
occasional  line  elsewhere  succeeds  in  doing  so. 

Samson  Agonistes.  —  Paradise  Lost  and  Paradise  Regained 
are  grand  epics.  Samson  Agonistes  is  a  tragic  drama.  It  is, 
however,  a  drama  built  upon  the  architectural  lines  of  an- 
cient Greek  craftsmanship,  and  not  upon  modern  lines,  the 
division  into  acts  being  marked  by  the  speeches  of  the  Chorus 
instead  of  by  the  formal  inter-act  of  modern  times.  In  this 
drama  Milton  follows  closely  the  story  of  Samson  as  told 
in  the  Book  of  Judges,  adding  only  one  important  feature, 
namely,  the  part  taken  by  Harapha,  the  giant,  who  represents 
brute  secular  force.  This  drama  is  Greek  in  form ;  it  has  all 
the  fervid  force  of  the  language  and  thought  of  the  Hebrew 
prophets ;  it  has  the  faith  of  the  Christian  justified  in  the  out- 
come of  the  struggle ;  and  it  has,  also,  the  intimacy  of  an  auto- 
biographical revelation.  It  is  autobiographical  in  the  bitter- 
ness with  which  Milton  views  the  breaking  down  of  his  ideals 
in  the  outworking  of  the  destinies  of  the  English  nation,  and 
it  even  rises  to  the  deeply  pathetic  cry  of  vivid,  personal  mis- 


122  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

fortune.  Milton  had  been  blind  for  some  time  before  he 
wrote  this  poem,  which  was  published  in  1670  at  the  same 
time  as  the  Paradise  Regained,  and  the  lament  of  Samson  over 
his  blindness  was  Milton's  own  agonized  lament  over  his  own 
blindness : 

Blind  among  enemies,  O  worse  than  chains, 

Dungeon,  or  beggary,  or  decrepit  age ! 

Light,  the  prime  work  of  God,  to  me  is  extinct. 

And  all  her  various  objects  of  delight 

Annull'd,  which  might  in  part  my  grief  have  eas'd, 

Inferior  to  the  vilest  now  become 

Of  man  or  worm ;    the  vilest  here  excel  me. 

They  creep,  yet  see ;   I  dark  in  light,  expos'd 

To  daily  fraud,  contempt,  abuse,  and  wrong, 

Within  doors,  or  without,  still  as  a  fool 

In  power  of  others,  never  in  my  own ; 

Scarce  half  I  seem  to  live,  dead  more  than  half. 

O  dark,  dark,  dark,  amid  the  blaze  of  noon. 

Irrecoverably  dark,  total  eclipse 

Without  all  hope  of  day ! 

And  yet  obedience,  patience,  and  hope  are  the  three  great 
virtues  which  the  whole  life-long  endurance  and  work  of 
Milton  have  taught  the  world.  Opinion  is  divided  to-day  be- 
tween Paradise  Lost  and  Samson  Agonistes  as  the  greatest  of 
Milton's  productions,  though  tradition  leans  heavily  in  favor 
of  the  former.  His  works  as  a  whole  present  man  with  the  two 
great  contrasting  influences.  On  the  one  hand,  Sin  and  Death 
sweep  through  the  universe,  blasting  all  worlds  in  their  onward 
career,  and  finally  seize  the  earth  as  their  doomed  prey.  On 
the  other  hand,  trustful  obedience  triumphs  over  all  the  horror 
and  suffering  and  agony  of  a  world  which  is  not,  as  a  whole, 
devoted  to  the  service  of  its  creator  and  judge. 

A  poet's  opinion.  —  Milton's  odes  and  sonnets,  for  which  this 


THE  LITERATURE  OF  THE   SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY     123 

passing  mention  will  have  to  suffice,  are  as  carefully  wrought 
and  as  earnest  in  their  purposes  as  the  greater  works.  He  was 
eminently  scholarly;  even  while  in  the  midst  of  his  poetic 
labors,  he  took  time  to  prepare  a  Latin  Lexicon.  He  would 
have  enjoyed  Tennyson's  Ode  to  Milton,  not  alone  for  the  lofty 
beauty  of  its  thought,  but  also  for  the  stateliness  of  its  classic 
measure.     These  are  its  first  few  lines,  — 

O  mighty-mouth'cl  inventor  of  harmonies, 
O  skill'd  to  sing  of  Time  and  Eternity, 
God-gifted  organ-voice  of  England, 
Milton,  a  name  to  resound  for  ages ; 
Whose  Titan  angels,  Gabriel,  Abdiel, 
Starr'd  from  Jehovah's  gorgeous  armories, 
Tower,  as  the  deep-domed  empyrean 
Rings  to  the  roar  of  an  angel  onset  — 

III.   John  Dryden 

Good-sense.  —  John  Dryden  was  the  great  "  good-sense  " 
man  of  the  seventeenth  century.  His  good  sense  showed  itself 
in  his  workmanship,  in  the  subject  matter  which  he  employed, — 
and,  unfortunately,  it  ran,  as  many  think,  somewhat  to  selfish- 
ness in  his  everyday  life. 

The  key  to  his  workmanship  lies  in  verses  of  his  own,  which 
run  thus,  — 

Gently  make  haste,  of  labor  not  afraid, 

A  hundred  times  consider  what  you've  said ; 

Polish,  re-polish,  every  color  lay, 

And  sometimes  add,  but  oftener  take  away. 

No  better  advice  could  be  given  to  the  beginner  in  the  craft 
of  writing.  This  care  in  the  handling  of  the  details  of  his  work 
was  due  considerably  to  an  influence  that  came  into  England 
from  the  outside.    Italy  had  affected  Chaucer  not  a  little, 


124  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

had  affected  the  Elizabethans  much  more,  and  the  lyrists  of 
the  daj^s  of  Charles  I  still  more.  But  with  Charles  II,  Italian 
influence  went  out  forever,  and  French  influence  established 
itself  solidly  for  a  generation. 

French  influence.  —  In  France  there  had  been  going  on  an 
effort  to  establish  a  fixed  language,  a  standard  French,  which 
it  was  hoped  might  express  a  literature  that,  because  it  would 
be  in  a  standardized  language,  would  become  permanent.  In 
1635  there  had  been  founded  the  French  Academy,  an  institu- 
tion which  still  exists,  the  purpose  of  which  was  to  set  up  and 
maintain  a  standard  in  intellectual  matters  by  which  literary 
expression  should  be  measured.  The  French  were  asking  in 
that  day,  as  they  still  ask  in  this,  not  alone  whether  one  is 
entertained,  or  pleased,  or  touched  by  a  work  of  art  or 
thought,  but  also  whether  one  is  right,  or  correct,  in  being  so 
affected  by  it.  The  courtiers  exiled  by  Cromwell  from  Eng- 
land went  to  France.  With  nothing  to  do  but  to  cultivate 
taste  and  sensitive  refinement,  a  great  deal  of  dilettantism 
arose  among  them,  though  underneath  it  all  there  lay  a  sense 
of  the  need  of  mental  disciphne  and  culture.  By  1660,  when 
Charles  II  came  to  the  throne  of  England,  the  French  critic 
and  poet,  Boileau,  had  already  begun  to  wipe  out  the  last 
shreds  of  Italian  influence  in  France.  Constantly  he  insisted: 
"  Let  us  turn  from  the  paste  brilliants  of  Italy.  All  should 
tend  to  good  sense."  In  1671  this  critic  published  an  imita- 
tion of  the  Art  0}  Poetry  of  Horace,  the  Latin  poet  and  critic. 
Boileau  said  to  those  who  would  write  that  they  should  go 
to  nature,  but  while  going  they  should  observe  how  the  great 
master  in  art  had  in  his  work  followed  nature,  and  then  they 
should  do  as  he  had  done;  that  if  they  would  walk  in  the 
path  of  the  great  dead  and  ceaselessly  try  to  do  as  they  had 
done,  they  would  come  to  a  worthy  goal.     To  Boileau,  the 


THE  LITERATURE  OF  THE   SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY    125 

greater  artists  were  the  best  poets  of  the  Augustan  time  in 
Latin  literature.  Under  this  sort  of  theory  the  French  be- 
came, as  would  be  expected,  masters  of  a  prose  style ;  but  the 
theory  was  too  restrictive  of  individual  freedom  to  permit  of 
expansive  thought,  of  warmth  of  passion,  or  of  personal  ex- 
pressiveness of  temperament  such  as  the  content  and  form  of 
great  poetry  require  for  its  making. 

Dry  den  was  born  in  1631,  and  was  twenty-nine  years  of  age 
when  the  Restoration  period  opened  in  English  history,  with 
all  its  French  taste  and  critical  judgment.  He  had  not  reached 
a  highly  productive  age  when  the  influence  of  Boileau  was 
at  its  height.  These  influences  affected  him  greatly.  In  the 
dedication  of  his  drama  entitled  The  Rival  Ladies,  he  said, 
**  Imagination  in  a  poet  is  a  faculty  so  wild  and  lawless  that, 
like  an  high-ranging  spaniel,  it  must  have  clogs  tied  to  it, 
lest  it  outrun  the  judgment."  Elsewhere  he  also  said  that 
"  the  story  is  the  least  part  of  the  poem,  though  it  be  the  foun- 
dation of  it;  the  price  lies  wholly  in  the  workmanship,  the 
forming  with  more  care  than  a  lapidary  sets  a  jewel."  (By 
"  story  "  he  meant  the  subject  developed  within  the  poem, 
whether  narrative  or  anything  else.)  And  yet  while  all  the 
French  insistence  upon  craftsmanship  affected  him  strongly, 
such  was  the  energy  of  his  genius  that  he  transcended  the 
trammels  of  these  imitative  practices  to  the  degree  that  he 
became,  as  Prof.  George  Saintsbury  says,  ''  perhaps  the  most 
English  of  all  English  writers."  His  good  sense  led  him  to 
see  that  poetry  was  in  need  of  reform,  for  in  the  writings  of 
the  so-called  ''  metaphysical  "  poets,  of  whom  Dr.  John  Donne 
was  chief,  both  thought  and  form  had  turned  to  such  fantastic 
conceits  that  he  who  runs  could  not  possibly  read  them  with 
understanding.  Yet  such  was  the  honesty  of  the  man  that 
he  remained  true  to  his  native  environment  in  thought  and 


126  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

feeling,  and  did  not  become  altogether  a  weak  imitator ;  and 
such  was  the  force  of  his  genius  that  he  was  able  to  employ 
a  conscious  manner  of  writing,  and  yet  through  that  manner 
put  forth  a  series  of  lyrics,  dramas,  translations,  and  criticisms 
that  were  marked  by  a  powerful  originality  of  point  of  view  and 
of  development  of  thought. 

The  subject  matter  of  his  writings  was,  in  the  main,  "  the 
common-sense  of  what  men  were  and  are."  And  through  it 
all,  he  did  what  Falstaff  urged  ancient  Pistol  to  do,  —  "  Talk 
like  a  man  of  this  world."  Although  at  our  distance  of  time 
from  him  much  that  he  wrote  seems  very  remote  from  our 
interests,  and  although  a.  good  deal  of  it  was  extravagant  even 
for  his  day,  yet  it  clung  and  still  clings  close  to  what  men  can 
understand,  and  it  moved,  as  it  still  moves,  their  admiration  or 
their  intense  dislike,  because  in  it  there  can  be  seen  the  image 
of  human  nature  as  it  is. 

With  all  of  his  native  force  and  originality,  Dryden  was  so 
much  the  child  of  his  time  that  his  religion  and  his  politics 
changed  with  the  veering  of  the  prevailing  wind  of  doctrine 
and  with  the  varying  success  of  party.  He  was  republican 
in  the  days  of  Cromwell,  and  royalist  with  the  Restoration  of 
royalty  to  power.  He  was  Presbyterian  in  the  days  when 
that  ecclesiastical  group  was  a  great  power  in  the  State,  and 
Roman  Catholic  when  Charles  II  and  James  II  were  in  control. 
Still,  these  changes  were  not  so  illogical  as  his  detractors  love 
to  pretend;  for,  as  to  politics,  the  Presbyterian  faction  was 
always  more  in  sympathy  with  the  royalists  than  were  the 
"  Independents,"  and,  being  a  man  of  the  people,  Dryden 
"  went  with  the  majority,"  which  is  pi^ecisely  what  most  men 
do,  whether  they  be  great  or  small,  despite  the  unpopularity  of 
the  phrase.  Furthermore,  in  the  matter  of  both  politics  and 
religion,  there  was  no  "  opening,"  as  we  say  to-day,  for  a  liter- 


THE   LITERATURE  OF  THE   SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY     127 

ary  man,  no  support  and  no  encouragement,  except  upon  the 
royalist  and  Roman  Catholic  side,  and  Dryden,  being  primarily 
a  man  of  letters,  went  where  he  could  "  get  work,"  where  he 
could  find  a  reading  public  and  live  by  its  patronage. 

Periods  of  his  works.  —  Dryden  passed  through  various 
phases,  or  periods,  in  his  literary  work.  He  began,  with  poetry 
which  was  lyric  and  "  occasional,"  that  is  to  say,  written  for 
the  celebration  of  specific  times  and  events.  A  large  share  of 
this  poetry  is  rubbish  to  us. 

Next,  Dryden  turned  to  play  writing.  The  theaters  had 
been  closed  at  the  beginning  of  the  Civil  War  between  Charles  I 
and  the  Cromwellians,  at  which  time  ended  the  greatest  period 
in  the  history  of  drama.  At  the  Restoration,  the  theaters 
were  opened  again  by  Charles  II,  and  a  new  dramatic  school 
arose.  Now,  in  his  second  period,  to  meet  the  public  demand, 
Dryden  for  fourteen  years  gave  himself  to  writing  for  the 
theater.  Only  three  of  his  plays  were  particularly  successful: 
The  Indian  Emperor,  All  for  Love,  and  The  Spanish  Friar,  All 
for  Love  has  the  same  subject  matter  as  Antony  and  Cleopatra, 
and  is  the  only  one  of  his  dramas  which,  Dryden  said,  he  wrote 
to  please  himself. 

During  the  third  period  of  his  work  there  came  from  his 
pen  a  series  of  poems  which  were  satirical  and  didactic.  The 
chief  among  them  was  a  satire,  the  topmost  in  quality  of 
all  the  satires  in  English  verse.  It  is  called  Absalom  and 
Achitophel.  English  verse  is  full  of  powerful  passages  of 
terrific  satire,  most  of  it  political,  much  of  it  too  lengthy  to 
be  effective  in  modern  times,  and  a  great  deal  of  it  downright 
brutal.  Of  many  British  satirists  Coleridge's  lines  may  well 
be  employed,  — 

Swans  sing  before  they  die :   'twere  no  bad  thing 
Did  certain  persons  die  before  they  sing. 


128  •  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

But  Dryden's  fierce  and  powerful  political  satire  is  eminently 
worth  the  reading.  He  saw  a  close  likeness  between  some  of  the 
politicians  of  that  time  and  those  of  the  reign  of  David,  King 
of  Israel,  during  the  time  of  the  rebellion  of  David's  son,  Ab- 
solom ;  and  he  was  keen  enough  to  see  that  a  Scripture  paral- 
lel would,  most  readily  of  all  things,  appeal  to  the  people  of  his 
period,  whether  Protestant  or  Roman  Catholic. 

During  this  third  phase  of  his  work  Dryden  wrote  also,  in 
1682,  a  poem  entitled  Religio  Laid,  which  was  practically  a  brief 
for  the  Church  of  England.  Then  in  1687  he  wrote  one  entitled 
The  Hind  and  the  Panther,  which  was  an  argument  between  a 
milk-white  Hind,  intended  to  be  thought  typical  of  Catholicism, 
and  a  Panther,  whose  spots  were  meant  to  indicate  the  many 
heresies  and  divisions  of  Protestantism.  The  Hind  and  the 
Panther  has  been  called  by  even  a  hostile  Protestant  "  a  model 
of  melodious  reasoning."  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  two  poems 
are  not  so  inconsistent  as  they  seem  to  one  who  observes  sup- 
erficially, for  in  the  earlier  poem,  Religio  Laid,  Dryden  had 
already  urged  the  unity  of  faith  and  obedience  to  authority 
which  is  characteristic  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  as  the 
following  lines  will  attest,  — 

—  after  hearing  what  the  Church  can  say, 
If  still  our  reason  runs  another  way, 
That  private  Reason  'tis  more  just  to  curb 
Than  by  disputes  the  public  peace  disturb. 
For  points  obscure  are  of  small  use  to  learn : 
But  common  quiet  is  mankind's  concern. 

In  1687,  too,  was  published  a  Song  for  St.  Cedlia's  Day.  Upon 
this  poem  Dryden's  fame  as  a  lyrical  singer  rests  secure.  It  has 
been  praised  by  the  most  exacting  of  critics,  including  that  great 
militant  thinker  of  Germany,  Lessing.  Together  with  Alex- 
ander's Feast  (1697),  it  can  be  read  with  as  much  of  ease  and 


THE   LITERATURE  OF  THE   SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY     129 

pleasure  to-day  as  if  it  had  been  written  by  one  of  the  most 
popular  of  our  contemporaries,  —  a  statement  which  cannot 
be  made  of  many  of  the  products  of  the  seventeenth  century. 
It  should  be  said  also,  that  within  the  plays  of  Dryden  are 
scattered  some  very  exquisite  lyrics. 

His  fourth  period  came  during  the  last  ten  years  of  his  life 
(he  died  in  1700).  Now  Dryden  again  turned  occasionally  to 
play  writing;  but  none  of  the  plays  written  at  this  time  is 
very  much  worth  the  attention  of  the  general  reader.  It  was 
during  this  last,  or  fourth  period,  of  his  labors,  that  he  wrote 
the  famous  Fables  and  the  chief  of  his  translations.  The 
Fables  also  he  called  "  translations."  They  were  made  from 
Ovid,  Homer,  Boccaccio,  and  Chaucer.  It  is  better  to  call  them 
paraphrases.  The  best  of  his  real  translations  are:  (i)  those 
from  the  works  of  Juvenal,  the  Roman  satirist,  to  whom  Dry- 
den was  akin  in  spirit,  and  (2)  the  Art  of  Painting  of  Du 
Fresnoy,  the  Frenchman. 

Criticism.  —  Most  of  the  critical  writing  of  Dryden  was  in 
the  form  of  prefaces  to  his  plays,  and  hence  was  spread  over 
several  of  these  four  periods  of  his  work.  The  best  of  his  critical 
writings  is  what  is  known  as  the  Essay  on  Dramatic  Poesy.  It 
is  one  of  the  ablest  treatments  of  the  subject  which  its  title 
suggests,  in  any  language. 

Dryden's  style.  —  It  will  now  be  seen  that  Dryden  was  a 
most  prolific,  untiring,  and  versatile  genius.  There  are  times 
when,  as  one  traverses  the  pathways  of  his  work,  one  is  in- 
clined, from  being  impressed  with  the  variety  and  vastness 
of  what  he  was  accomplishing,  to  cry  with  Hamlet,  ''  Rest,  rest, 
perturb'd  spirit."  No  greater  gift  was  presented  to  the  Eng- 
lish-writing race  by  Dryden  than  the  clearness,  plainness,  and 
homeliness  of  his  prose  sentences.  His  sentences  are  excel- 
lent, as  compared  with  those  of  any  other  writer  of  either  the 


130  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

seventeenth  or  the  eighteenth  centuries,  in  spite  of  his  ten- 
dency to  elongate  them  '^  joint  by  joint  as  fresh  thoughts  recur  " 
to  him.  This  "  jointing  "  is  always  a  tendency  upon  the  part  of 
the  writer  who  thinks  while  he  writes. 

About  the  only  regret  we  can  have  in  connection  with  Dry- 
den  is  that  he  did  not  carry  out  the  project  of  an  Arthurian 
epic,  which  he  as  well  as  Milton  and  Spenser  had  contem- 
plated. 

In  the  great  bulk  of  the  prose  literature  of  the  world,  it 
is  a  refreshment  to  turn  to  the  sturdy  prose  pages  of  John 
Dryden,  though  he  is  not  a  pastime  for  the  frivolous  and 
indolent. 

IV.  Later  Contemporaries  of  Milton  and  Dryden 

Scientists.  —  It  is  not  until  one  has  come  to  the  seventeenth 
century  that  he  can  speak  of  a  literature  of  science  in  Great 
Britain.  Bacon  had  proposed  for  science  what  we  now  call  the 
inductive  method,  that  is,  the  examination  of  actual  details  of 
fact  and  the  drawing  of  conclusions  from  that  examination  and 
from  it  alone.  In  1662  came  the  founding  of  the  Royal  Society 
of  London ;  and  one  man's  name  became  immortal  at  once,  for  he 
was  the  first  to  state  the  theory  of  gravitation  as  the  formula 
covering  the  relation  of  the  parts  of  the  universe  to  each  other, 
or,  we  may  say,  of  the  "  system  of  the  universe."  That  man 
was  Sir  Isaac  Newton.  Under  the  stimulus  of  the  Royal  Society 
many  sciences  came  to  be  formally  and  systematically  studied 
for  the  first  time.  Among  these  sciences  were  chemistry,  miner- 
alogy, zoology,  botany,  and  medicine,  and  even  astrology  passed 
over  into  the  science  of  astronomy.  Newton  had  presented  his 
Theory  of  Light  to  the  Royal  Society  in  167 1.  In  1687,  the 
Principia,  which  contained  the  statement  of  the  theory  of 
gravitation,  inaugurated  a  revolution  in  human  thought  beside 


THE  LITERATURE  OF  THE   SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY     131 

which  the  English  political  Revolution  of  1688  is  insignificance 
itself. 

Philosophers.  —  In  political  philosophy  two  writers  were 
prominent  during  this  century,  —  Thomas  Hobbes  and  John 
Locke.  Thomas  Hcbbes  published  in  165 1  a  treatise  under  the 
heavy  title  of  Leviathan,  in  which  he  maintained  two  things: 
first,  that  the  origin  of  all  power  is  in  the  people,  and,  'second, 
that  the  legitimate  purpose  of  all  exercise  of  power  is  the  common 
good  of  all  the  people.  None  could  say  after  this  that  kings 
ruled  by  right  conferred  upon  them  by  divine  authority  alone, 
though  Hobbes  denied  the  value  of  the  modern  doctrine  of  "  re- 
call," for  he  declared  that  power  once  delegated  by  the  people 
to  rulers  could  not  be  taken  away  even  by  the  people  who  had 
delegated  it. 

John  Locke,  following  in  the  footsteps  of  Bacon,  published  in 
1690  a  book  entitled  an  Essay  on  Human  Understanding.  In 
this  book  Locke  elaborated  the  idea  that  all  real  knowledge  is 
derived  from  experience.  He  said  that  the  human  mind  is, 
at  the  birth  of  the  individual,  like  a  clean  sheet  of  white  paper ; 
that  upon  this  sheet  there  come  to  be  written,  as  it  were,  the 
experiences  we  have  through  sensation  and  our  reflection  upon 
sensation,  and  that  the  ''  human  understanding  "  is  composed 
of  an  infinite  number  of  complex  ideas  which  have  grown  from 
this  reflection  upon  sensation.  He  failed,  however,  to  tell  any- 
thing of  very  great  value  about  this  power  of  reflection  which  we 
possess.  In  this  same  year,  1 690,  Locke  published  another  book, 
this  time  upon  Civil  Government.  This  book,  it  will  be  seen,  was 
published  but  two  years  after  the  Revolution  which  occurred 
under  the  leadership  of  William  of  Orange,  while  Hobbes's  books 
had  come  out  during  the  rule  of  Cromwell.  Each  book,  then, 
was  a  timely  one,  and  each  justified  the  reigning  practice  of  its 
day.     Locke's  was  a  decided  advance  upon  that  of  Hobbes, 


132  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

for  it  claimed  that  the  people  have  the  right  to  recall,  or  take 
from  any  ruler,  the  power  they  have  given  into  his  hands,  and 
that  the  supreme  authority  is  in  the  legislature. 

Locke's  style  was  rather  dry,  but  clear  and  simple.  He 
was  the  most  enlightened  man  of  the  last  half  of  his  century, 
and,  as  Edmund  Gosse  suggests,  his  modesty  and  candor 
and  kindliness  of  mental  attitude  towards  others  made  him 
somewhat  Hke  Charles  Darwin,  the  scientist  of  the  nineteenth 
century. 

Fiction  writers.  —  Few  books  have  been  more  widely  and  more 
lovingly  read  than  The  Pilgrim's  Progress,  by  John  Bunyan, 
published  in  part  in  1678,  the  remainder  in  1684.  To  one  who 
thinks  as  he  reads,  no  statement  is  more  astounding  than  the 
often-made  one  that  the  author  of  The  Life  and  Death  of  Mr. 
Badman  and  The  Pilgrim's  Progress  was  an  ignorant  man. 
He  was  not  a  college-bred  man,  but  the  evidence  that  he  was 
both  a  man  of  full  mind  and  a  consummate  artist  is  in  these 
two  books. 

Bunyan's  books  were  intended  to  be  an  aid  to  religious  life, 
and  they  succeeded  eminently  in  this  purpose.  But  Bunyan 
did  one  thing  in  the  writing  of  The  Pilgrim's  Progress  of  which 
he  was  not  conscious.  He  became,  along  with  Madame  de  la 
Fayette  in  France  and  Samuel  Richardson  in  England,  one 
of  the  founders  of  the  modern  novel.  Prose  fiction  writers  in 
the  seventeenth  century,  both  in  France  and  England,  were 
not  (1)  looking  into  the  hearts  of  men,  either  their  own  or 
those  of  others,  and  writing  down  what  they  saw  there;  nor 
(2)  were  they  writing  with  the  singleness  of  purpose  and  of 
effect  which  mark  the  master  in  speech-craft.  But  Madame  de 
la  Fayette,  a  Frenchwoman,  did,  without  any  hysteria  either, 
precisely  that  first  thing,  namely,  looked  into  the  human 
heart,  —  which  happened  to  be  her  own  heart,  —  and  then, 


THE  LITERATURE  OF  THE   SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY     133 

in  La  Princess  de  Cleves  (1678),  wrote  strongly,  sanely,  and 
delicately  an  accurate  description  of  what  she  saw  there.  She 
was  the  first  of  true  psychologists  in  modern  fiction.  It  was 
in  that  same  year  of  1678  that  Part  I  of  The  Pilgrim'' s  Progress 
was  published.  Bunyan  was  not  the  psychologist  that  Madame 
de  la  Fayette  proved  herself  to  be,  but  he  was  an  instinctive 
artist.  The  strongest  artistic  instinct  within  him  was  that  of 
selection.  Selection  implies  rejection.  And  in  art,  which  is 
the  reproduction  of  life  in  enjoyable  and  easily  understood 
forms,  there  is  rejected  all  which  does  not,  in  the  work  of 
art,  serve  some  one  dominant  purpose.  Bunyan's  book  takes 
one  man  and  makes  him  march  one  path  to  one  goal.  That 
is  art.  That  gives  what  we  may  call  unity  to  the  work. 
Bunyan  was  the  first  man  to  do  this  in  modern  prose  fiction. 
Whatever  else  he  may  be  remembered  for,  he  should  not  be 
forgotten  for  this.  It  was  left  for  Samuel  Richardson,  during 
another  and  later  period,  to  take  up,  in  three  books  published 
between  1740  and  1753,  the  psychology  of  Madame  de  la 
Fayette  and  the  artistic  simplicity  of  John  Bunyan  and  apply 
them,  not  to  the  individual  alone,  but  to  the  human  group,  or 
society. 

Diarists.  —  The  Diary  has  not  been  a  very  successful  form 
of  literature.  It  is  too  artificial.  It  pretends  to  be  written  for 
the  writer's  eye  alone,  as  a  rule,  while  no  sensible  person  will 
believe  that  it  has  not  been  intended  for  the  world  to  read.  The 
two  best  diaries  in  all  literature  were  produced  in  England: 
that  of  John  Evelyn  during  the  first  half  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  and  that  of  Samuel  Pepys  during  the  last  half. 

Pepys's  Diary  is  especially  interesting  to  students  of  history 
and  of  drama.  The  reference  to  current  events  in  the  politics 
of  the  times  and  in  the  theatrical  world  are  most  charming,  and 
illuminating,  too.     One  always  feels,  while  reading  them,  as  if 


134  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

he  were  being  stirred  both  to  amusement  and  to  intellectual 
curiosity.  One  wants  to  know  the  man  who  wrote  the  book, 
and  feels  that  he  is  looking  at  the  very  things  that  that  man 
himself  has  seen.  No  student  of  history  or  of  literature  can 
afford  to  miss  the  delight  of  reading  the  Diary  of  Samuel 
Pepys.  And  one  who  does  read  it  never  forgets  the  descrip- 
tion of  the  wife  of  William  Penn,  or  the  estimate  of  Hamlet,  or 
the  delicate  social  difficulties  into  which  Pepys  gels  himself 
and  out  of  which  he  so  skillfully  extricates  himself.  This  diary 
is  one  of  the  most  charming  of  all  things  in  the  whole  history  of 
literature. 

Ail  Essayist.  —  The  best  essay  writer  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  with  the  exception  of  Bacon,  was  Sir  William  Temple. 
Temple  wrote  his  Essays  after  the  Revolution  of  1688.  They 
read  to  us  more  like  those  of  a  twentieth-century  stylist  than 
do  even  the  skilled  works  of  the  masters  of  the  century 
following  Temple.  One  sentence  from  him  is  sufficient  to 
illustrate : 

"When  all  is  done,  human  life  is,  at  the  greatest  and  the  best,  but  like 
a  froward  child,  that  must  be  played  with  and  humored  a  little  to  keep  it 
quiet  till  it  falls  asleep,  and  then  the  care  is  over." 

Minor  poets.  —  The  minor  poetry  of  this  century  was  very 
''  minor."  Two  contemporaries  of  Milton  and  precursors  of 
Dryden  were  Edmund  Waller  and  Abraham  Cowley.  Waller 
revived  and  remodeled  the  heroic  couplet  which  Chaucer  had 
employed,  and  Dryden  then  gave  this  remodeled  couplet  the 
vogue  it  continued  to  have  for  a  century  and  a  half.  Waller 
should  be  remembered  as  one  whom  Dryden  considered  his 
greatest  teacher.  Abraham  Cowley  was  a  good  essayist,  and, 
in  his  earlier  years,  a  somewhat  fantastic  poet.  Later  he  be- 
came well  known  for  his  odes,  which  were  almost  noble  in  both 


THE  LITERATURE  OF  THE   SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY     135 

emotion  and  expression  and  therefore  almost,  according  to 
Ruskin,  great  poetry.  Cowley's  Odes  had  considerable  influence 
upon  the  work  of  Dryden,  as  is  shown  in  the  latter's  splendid 
Alexander's  Feast. 

The  satires  by  Andrew  Marvell,  and  especially  those  by 
Samuel  Butler,  during  the  period  of  the  Revolution,  were 
fiercely  powerful ;  but  they  can  hardly  be  called  literature, 
except  by  a  very  elastic  use  of  the  term.  The  time  spent  upon 
the  reading  of  the  Hudibras  of  this  Samuel  Butler  might 
better  be  spent  upon  the  reading  of  The  Way  of  All  Flesh,  a 
highly  accurate  picture  in  novel  form  of  English  life  by  the 
Samuel  Butler  of  the  mid-nineteenth  century,  and  a  book  which 
a  few  consider  one  of  the  best  in  the  whole  realm  of  novel 
production.  The  two  Samuel  Butlers  should  be  distinguished, 
and  the  second  of  them  never  forgotten. 

Around  "  glorious  John  "  Dryden  in  Will's  Coffee-house  in 
London  there  often  gathered  many  minor  poets  who  were  clever 
anticipators  of  the  modern  journalistic  verse  writer.  Among 
them  were  the  Earls  of  Rochester  and  of  Dorset.  Rochester's 
epigram  and  quasi-epitaph  on  Charles  II  is  famous  for  its 
mockery,  — 

Here  lies  our  sovereign  lord  the  king, 

Whose  word  no  man  relies  on : 
Who  never  said  a  foolish  thing 

Nor  ever  did  a  wise  one. 

But  the  Earl  of  Dorset's  introductory  lines  to  some  verses 
written  during  the  Dutch  War  in  1665  find  a  surer  chord  of 
response  in  the  breast  of  Ynany  a  modern  student,  — 

To  all  ye  ladies  now  on  land 

We  men  at  sea  indite ; 
But  first  would  have  you  understand 

How  hard  it  is  to  write. 


J36  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

QUESTIONS  AND   TOPICS   FOR   DISCUSSION 

1.  Tell  what  you  have  learned  about  the  Puritan  movement. 

2.  Who  were  the  leading  "successors"  of  Shakespeare?    Tell  what 
you  have  learned  about  the  works  of  one  of  them. 

3.  What  was  the  purpose  of  the  "  character- writings "  of  the  seven- 
teenth century? 

4.  In  Palgrave's  "  Golden  Treasury  "  find  a  lyric  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury and  quote  it  from  memory. 

5.  Classify  the  works  of  John  Milton. 

6.  What  effect  had  Milton's  blindness  upon  his  writings? 

7.  Memorize  and  quote  the  passage  in  Paradise  Lost  which  you  think 
the  finest. 

8.  What  is  a  "Masque"?      What  is  the  chief  purpose  of  Milton's 
Masque  of  Comus  ? 

9.  Quote  Dryden's  lines  on  "how  to  write." 

10.  Briefly  describe  the  phases  through  which  the  literary  work  of 
Dryden  passed. 

11.  A  German  critic,  Lessing,  said  that  Dryden's  Alexander's  Feast,  an 
Ode  in  honor  of  St.  Cecilia's  Day,  "is  full  of  musical  pictures,  but  gives  no 
employment  to  the  painter's  brush."  Read  the  ode  and  see  if  you  agree 
with  Lessing. 

12.  Classify  the  chief  writers  of  the  last  years  of  the  seventeenth  century. 

READING  LIST  FOR  THE   SEVENTEENTH   CENTURY 

Ben  Jonson,  The  Alchemist.    Edited  by  Brinsley  Nicholson. 

John  Earle,  Microcosmographie.     Edited  by  Edward  Arber. 

Robert  Herrick,      The  Temple.     "  Everyman's  Library." 
George  Herbert,    Ilesperides.    "Everyman's  Library." 
Dryden,  A  Song  for  St.  Cecilia's  Day,  Alexander's  Feast.    In 

Poetical  Works,  edited  by  W.  D.  Christie. 

Translation  of  The  Mneid.    In  Poetical  Works,  Cam- 
bridge Edition. 
Milton,  Minor  Poems.    Edited  by  Mary  A.  Jordan. 

Paradise  Lost.     Edited  by  Israel  Gollancz. 

Samson  Agonistes.    Edited  by  H.  M.  Perdval. 


THE   LITERATURE  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY     137 

HELPFUL  BOOKS  ON  THE  PERIOD 

Seventeenth  Century  Studies,  Edmund  W.  Gosse.      (Kegan  Paul,  Trench,  & 

Co.) 
The  Jacobean  Poets,  Edmund  W.  Gosse.     (John  Murray.) 
History  of  English  Poetry,  Vol.  Ill,  W.  J.  Courthope.     (The  Macmillan 

Company.) 
Ben  Jonson  to  Dryden,  in  the  series  entitled  Ward's  "English  Poets."     (The 

Macmillan  Company.) 
History  of  English  Literature,  H.  A.  Taine.     (Chatto  &  Windus.) 
The  Age  of  Dryden,  Richard  Garnett.     (George  Bell  &  Sons.) 
John  Milton,  M.  Pattison  in  "English  Men  of  Letters"  Series.     (The  Mac- 
millan Company.) 
John  Bunyan,  J.  A.  Froude,  in  "English  Men  of  Letters"  Series.     (The 

Macmillan  Company.) 
Old  English  Dramatists,  James  Russell  Lowell.     (Houghton,  MifHin,  &  Co.) 
Puritan  and  Anglican,  Edward  Dowden.     (Kegan  Paul,  Trench,  &  Co.) 
From  Shakespeare  to  Pope,  Edmund  Gosse.     (Dodd,  Mead,  &  Co.) 


CHAPTER  V 
THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

I 700-1 798 

I.  Its  General  Character 

English  literature  of  the  eighteenth  century  began  with  the 
publication,  in  1701,  of  Defoe's  True-born  Englishman.  This 
century  is  one  often  maligned.  But  it  is  maligned  only  by 
the  uninformed  and  unthinking;  for  it  was,  despite  all  its 
trivialities,  a  century  of  high  and  hard  thinking.  The  re- 
naissance and  the  reformation  periods  had  advanced  Europe 
to  a  cultural  point  far  beyond  anything  attained  previously, 
except  in  some  forms  of  the  art  production  of  the  thirteenth 
century  and  in  some  aspects  of  the  philosophical  thinking  of 
the  third  century  preceding  the  Christian  era.  The  seventeenth 
century  had  seen  considerable  settling  down  and  back  from  the 
results  achieved  by  the  two  movements,  the  Renaissance  and  the 
Reformation,  which  had  ended  the  middle  ages  and  introduced 
modern  times.  But  the  eighteenth  century  rose  to  be  one  of 
deep  and  absorbed  reflection.  All  the  elements  of  civilization 
and  culture  were  passed  under  review  by  the  thinkers  of  Great 
Britain  and  even  more  deeply  by  those  of  Germany  and  France. 
The  intellect  of  man  was  pondered  over  as  it  had  not  been  since 
the  days  of  Aristotle  in  ancient  Greece.  And  not  only  man's 
intellect,  but  the  universe  in  which  man  lives,  was  thought 
through  with  a  penetrative  power  of  vision,  especially  by  such 
minds  as  that  of  Kant  in  Germany,  such  as  had  never  before 
been  applied    to   the   nature  and    purposes  of   the   universe. 

138 


THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY  1 39 

The  foundations  of  government,  and  all  the  aspects  of  its  consti- 
tution and  administration,  were  examined  most  seriously.  The 
keenest  attempts  were  also  made  to  estimate  the  processes  of 
literary  production  and  the  values  of  that  which  had  been  done 
in  literature  and  other  forms  of  art  in  the  past. 

It  was  an  intellectual  century,  primarily.  And  all  the  ac- 
tivities of  mind  we  have  just  been  outlining  were  certain  to 
bear  fruit  in  life.  They  did  bear  fruit  in  life,  both  in  that  dis- 
ciplined expression  of  life  which  we  call  literary  work  and 
in  the  less  disciplined  form  of  life  which  we  term  social  re- 
lationships. Yet  this  century,  while  it  produced  great  litera- 
ture, produced  little  which  can  be  ranked  with  the  greatest, 
for  it  was  nearly  all  brought  forth  too  much  under  the  ''  rule 
of  thumb  "  of  the  intellect.  And,  moreover,  the  social  life  of 
the  century,  while  in  general  it  was  one  of  progress,  yet  was 
much  hampered  by  the  strong  struggles  of  old  institutions  to 
perpetuate  their  already  doomed  existence. 

The  century  was,  in  Europe,  largely  one  of  reflection  upon  the 
past.  But  that  reflection  was  sure  to  extend  itself  to  what 
was  contemporary,  and  when  it  did  so,  it  precipitated  a  crisis 
in  the  French  Revolution.  The  eighteenth  century  may  be 
said,  then,  to  be  a  transitional  century,  —  one  fully  taking  up 
into  itself  the  elements  of  the  past  and  then  transmuting  them 
into  the  vitality  of  the  future,  —  a  century  actively  preparatory 
for  that  which  was  to  follow.  The  greatest  product  of  that 
century  was  the  civilization  of  the  nineteenth  and  twentieth 
centuries. 

It  was,  on  the  whole,  a  conservative  age ;  but  the  result  of 
its  conservatism  was  such  an  intelligent  conservation  of  that 
which  was  of  value  in  the  past  that  it  brought  about  at  its 
end  great  revolutions,  such  as  the  French  Revolution,  against 
the  harmful  and  valueless  elements  of  life  which  had  survived 


140  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

and  crystallized  out  of  the  past.  It  was  an  epoch  so  full  of 
understanding  of  what  man  had  experienced  that  it  forced 
men  into  the  desire  and  necessity  for  experience  that  was  rela- 
tively new.  So  much  of  all  this  ferment  of  intellectual  life  as 
came  to  be  put  into  books  is  what  concerns  us  here. 

Classification  of  writers.  —  The  British  authors  of  the  eight- 
eenth century  may  be  grouped  as  poets,  essayists,  novelists, 
philosophers,  and  historians.  We  shall  take  them  up  for  con- 
sideration in  these  groups. 

The  last  years  of  the  seventeenth  century  were  the  most  barren 
of  all  times  since  the  dreary  stretches  of  the  fifteenth.  Hence 
it  will  be  found  easy  to  keep  within  the  confines  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  in  such  consideration,  so  far  as  its  beginning  is  con- 
cerned. But  it  is  impossible  to  refrain  from  at  least  slight  dis- 
cussion of  some  of  the  poets  of  the  nineteenth  century  when  we 
have  in  hand  those  of  the  eighteenth,  for  several  of  the  workers 
in  the  literature  of  the  pre- Victorian  or  early  decades  of  the 
nineteenth  century  were,  in  their  work,  well  under  way  be- 
tween 1790  and  1800. 

I.  The  Poets 

Division.  —  The  poetry  of  the  eighteenth  century  may  be 
divided  into  three  groups.  In  some  instances  the  same  authors 
will  be  mentioned  in  more  than  one  group,  for  the  principle 
of  division  upon  which  the  grouping  is  here  based,  while 
seeming  to  be  a  time  principle,  is  in  reality  one  of  the  spirit 
of  the  poetry  in  the  various  divisions.  The  first  group  of 
poems  was  written  between  1701  and  1738,  beginning  with 
Defoe's  True-born  Englishman.  The  chief  poet  was  Pope. 
The  second  group  was  written  between  1738  and  1785.  Dr. 
Samuel  Johnson's  London  marked  the  beginning  of  this  group. 
The  chief  poet  was  Gray.    The  third  group  was  written  between 


THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  141 

1785  and  1798.  The  first  edition  of  the  poems  of  Robert  Burns 
opened  this  brief  productive  period.  He  was  chief  of  the  poets 
in  this  third  period.  A  new  Uterary  century  began  in  1798 
with  the  publication  of  a  volume  entitled  Lyrical  Ballads, 
written  by  Coleridge  and  Wordsworth,  yet  we  include  early 
labors  of  these  two  men  within  this  third  eighteenth-century 
group,  for  the  sake  of  uniformity  in  dates. 

The  spirit  of  early  eighteenth-century  poetry.  —  The  eigh- 
teenth century  is  misunderstood  by  so  many  to-day  because 
they  are  content  to  take  its  legacies  without  examination. 
The  common  thought  about  that  age  is  that  it  was  one  of 
extreme  and  severe  formalism,  meaning  by  "  formalism  "  living 
and  doing  all  thinking  and  work  by  rule;  that  it  was  an  age 
interested  in  being  ''  correct,"  even  at  the  expense  of  vitality. 
It  is  true  that  "  correctness  "  was  the  dominant  character- 
istic of  the  early  decades  of  that  century;  but  it  was  not 
the  only  characteristic.  Underneath  and  up  through  all  that 
classic  severity  and  formalism  there  struggled  the  spirit  of 
freedom  of  thought  and  freedom  of  expression.  The  spirit 
of  the  whole  century  in  literature  may  be  described  as  one 
of  constant  struggle  between,  on  the  one  hand,  repression 
of  original  individual  thought  and  feeling,  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  free,  personal  expressiveness  of  individual  thought  and 
feeling  and  of  instinct  for  form  that  would  best  reveal  in- 
dividuality. This  struggle  was  one  in  which  the  second  of 
the  two  forces  gradually  triumphed.  The  three  groups  of 
poetry  which  we  have  mentioned  are  separated  from  each 
other  on  precisely  this  basis.  During  the  first  period  classic 
formalism  and  restraint  were  uppermost  in  strength,  the  work 
of  Alexander  Pope  being  the  standard  of  the  time,  though 
there  were  notable  symptoms  of  revolt.  During  the  second 
period  this  control  by  the  ancients  and  by  their  chief  repre- 


142  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

sentative,  Pope,  was  rather  thoroughly  undermined.     Anci  dur- 
ing the  third  period  it  altogether  ceased  to  control. 


I.    The  First  Period  of  Eighteenth-century  Poetry ^  1 701-1738 

Influences  upon  it.  —  The  spirit  of  the  years  in  poetry  from 
1 701  to  1738  was,  as  we  have  said,  one  of  formalism,  or  of 
living,  thinking,  and  working  by  rule.  The  chief  influences 
were:  (i)  Horace's  Ars  Poetica,  (2)  Boileau's  VArt  Poet- 
ique,  and  (3)  Rene  Rapin's  work  translated  from  the  French 
under  the  title  of  Reflections  and  containing  a  sort  of  code  of 
rules  for  writers,  founded  upon  the  practices  of  the  ancients 
and  the  theories  of  Aristotle,  and  (4)  the  teachings  of  the 
critical  work  of  Dry  den.  Pope  was  the  man  immediately  in 
control. 

Despite  the  fact  that  we  fret  under  the  exacting  demands 
of  these  formal  masters,  Alexander  Pope  is  too  much  over- 
looked to-day  in  the  study  of  literature.  Edward  Everett  Hale, 
Jr.,  speaks  rightly  of  Pope  as  the  "  much-neglected  poet  who 
said  many  things  so  much  better  than  any  one  else  could  ever 
say  them."  Still  it  must  be  admitted  that  it  is  for  the  isolated 
"  sayings  "  that  he  is  not  only  most  famous  but  most  worthy  to 
be  known.  But  the  isolated  sayings  are  almost  continuous! 
Each  statement  of  his,  in  many  of  his  poems,  is  in  and  of 
itself  a  notable  one.  This,  of  course,  does  not  rank  his  poetry 
among  the  highest  and  finest,  for  a  poem  ought  to  be  of  such 
organic  nature  that  the  whole  and  the  parts  should  be  in- 
separable. And  yet,  however  this  may  be,  all  poets  suffer  from 
the  fact  that  their  richest  poetry  is  often  in  single  lines  (Pope's 
in  double  lines,  or  couplets)  and  brief  passages.  Especially  is 
this  true  of  those  who  are  guilty  of  overproduction,  as  most 
poets  are. 


THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  1 43 

Alexander  Pope  was  convinced  that  the  imagination,  that  is, 
the  picture  making  and  the  constructive  power  of  the  mind 
of  man,  must  not  work  by  its  own  laws,  but  must  be  controlled 
by  reason  and  by  rules  drawn  from  the  observation  of  the  work 
of  already  successful  writers.  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  later  in 
the  century  than  Pope  was  to  formulate  the  doctrine  of  his 
work  when  he  came  to  say,  "  There  is  but  one  school,  that  of 
Nature ;  and  of  that  the  old  masters  hold  the  key."  It  should 
be  noted  that  there  is  recognition  of  nature,  but  that  the  guid- 
ing power  is  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  old  masters. 

Alexander  Pope.  —  The  poems  of  Pope  were  produced  in  three 
groups,  (i)  The  first  consisted  of  the  Pastorals,  which  appeared 
in  1709,  the  Essay  on  Criticism,  in  1711,  and  The  Rape  of  the 
Lock,  1 71 2.  The  Pastorals  were  imitative  of  Virgil.  They  con- 
sisted of  four  eclogues  on  the  seasons.  The  school  of  nature 
and  the  key  held  by  the  old  masters  were  here  together,  surely. 
The  Essay  on  Criticism  consists  of  writing  about  writing;  a 
good  deal  of  it  being  even  "  writing  about  writing  about  writing," 
for  it  undertakes  to  tell  how  the  critic,  or  one  who  judges  writing, 
should  regulate  his  behavior.  He  must  be  "  candid,  modest, 
open,  well-bred,"  must  be  willing  even  to  bear  attack  himself. 
The  Rape  of  the  Lock  placed  Pope  in  the  first  rank  of  European 
poets  of  his  day.  In  all  those  things  which  it  had  been  thought 
an  English  poet  could  not  achieve,  such  as  deftness  of  touch, 
elegance  of  style,  exquisite  satire,  this  deformed  and  sickly- 
bodied,  but  phenomenally  brilliant  Englishman,  surpassed  even 
the  French  and  Italian  and  Spanish,  who  had  thought  such  a 
thing  impossible.  At  last,  British  men  of  letters  had  among 
themselves  one  who  was  superior  to  most  of  those  whom  they 
had  thought  they  must  imitate.  Now  their  own  home  model, 
Alexander  Pope,  became  supreme. 

(2)  The  second  group  of  Pope's  works  contained  a  second 


144  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

pastoral  entitled  The  Messiah,  published  in  171 2,  Windsor 
Forest  J  in  17 13,  translations  of  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  ^  be- 
tween 1 7 1 5  and  1725,  and  the  Dunciad,  1 728.  The  Messiah  was 
copied  after  Isaiah  in  substance  and  after  Virgil  in  style.  Wind- 
sor Forest  was  a  jumble  of  everything,  from  description  of  eels 
to  political  philosophy.  The  translations  of  the  epics  of  Homer 
are  still  highly  praised  and  widely  read,  though  to  the  discrimi- 
nating reader  who  knows  the  Greek  they  are  "  no  Homer."  The 
Dunciad  was  a  fine,  yet  savage,  cruelly  fierce,  and  unworthy 
satire  upon  the  enemies  of  Pope,  especially  some  of  the  minor 
poets  of  his  day.  Pope  had  his  enemies,  many  and  bitter,  in 
spite  of  his  immense  vogue.  No  man  of  consequence  is  long 
without  some  enemies.  To  Pope,  in  this  poem,  some  of  his 
contemporaries  are  represented  as  the  very  embodiment  of  the 
Deity  of  Dulness;  in  their  activity,  he  thought,  every  hour 
"  ductile  Dulness  new  meanders  takes."  His  enemies  suc- 
ceeded in  returning  fire  with  effectiveness  upon  their  satirist, 
and  Pope,  sensitive  to  a  fault,  was  much  embittered  by  it. 

(3)  The  third  group  of  his  poems  consisted  of  the  Essay 
on  Man,  which  was  published  in  1734,  and  the  Epistle  to  Dr. 
Arbuthnot,  1735.  There  were  other  poems  in  this  period,  as 
in  the  others,  but  those  here  named  are  more  than  merely  rep- 
resentative of  all  that  was  important  among  his  productions. 
The  Essay  on  Man  was  thought  for  a  long  time,  by  the  greatest 
of  men  both  at  home  and  abroad,  to  be  "  the  noblest  specimen 
of  philosophical  poetry  which  our  language  affords."  But  it 
is  not  a  logical  piece  of  work  in  its  reasoning;  and  it  is  me- 
chanically constructed,  often  for  no  apparent  purpose  except 
to  secure  a  certain  rhyme.  The  Epistle  to  Dr.  Arbuthnot  is  one 
of  a  series  of  so-called  Moral  Essays,  or  Epistles  to  men  and 
women,  some  written  to  praise,  some  to  blame,  and  is  the  most 
splendid  of  all  his  fascinating  satires.     It  is  matchless  in  its 


THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  145 

lashings  of  those  whom  its  author  venomously  hated.  The  title 
is  not  an  attractive  one  to  our  generation,  and  therefore  the  poem 
is  often  overlooked  by  readers ;  a  comment  upon  the  value  of 
an  attractive  title. 

Pope  still  holds  a  commanding  place  among  English  poets. 
It  is  that  of  the  finest  artist  in  the  handling  of  details,  though 
not  in  sustained  expression  of  either  thought  or  emotion.  Men 
often  maintain  that  physical  ill  has  much  to  do  with  genius. 
It  certainly  had  much  to  do  with  the  nature  of  the  genius  of  Pope. 
The  peculiarly  bitter  character  of  his  satire  was  doubtless  largely 
due  to  the  ills  to  which  his  flesh  was  heir. 

Minor  poetry  to  1738.  —  The  remaining  poetry  of  the  first 
thirty-eight  years  of  the  century  may  be  treated  briefly.  Defoe's 
True-born  Englishman  was  a  defense  of  William  III,  and  an  ex- 
cellent introduction  to  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne.  The  poem 
was  also  a  good  introduction  to  the  work  of  Defoe  as  a 
pamphleteer,  which  will  be  noticed  in  another  connection. 

Allan  Ramsay,  a  Scotchman,  was  one  of  those  who,  as  he 
said,  "  spoke  their  mother- tongue  without  disguise."  He  should 
be  remembered  not  so  much  for  the  frequently  noticed  Gentle 
Shepherd  as  for  the  two  groups  of  poems  entitled  The  Tea-  Table 
and  The  Evergreen,  which  stimulated  a  number  of  song  writers  to 
make  ready  the  popular  ear  for  the  riper  songs  of  Burns. 

James  Thomson,  another  Scotchman,  in  his  Seasons,  1730, 
blazed  distinctly  the  path  which  the  nature  worshipers  of  .the 
late  eighteenth  and  the  early  nineteenth  century  were  to  tread. 

Ye  forests  bend,  ye  harvests  wave,  to  Him ; 
Breathe  your  still  song  into  the  reaper's  heart, 
As  home  he  goes  beneath  the  joyous  moon, 

could  have  been  written  only  by  one  who  felt  within  himself 
the  stirrings  of  deepest  love  of  nature. 


146  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

Joseph  Addison,  the  journalist,  was  also  a  poet.  His  Cam- 
paigUy  1704,  celebrating  the  Battle  of  Blenheim,  came  most 
logically  from  him,  as  a  journalist,  for  it  was  a  sort  of ''  Gazette  " 
in  rhyme.  The  dramatic  work  of  Addison,  and  the  dramatic 
work  of  the  entire  century,  too,  may  be  best  treated  apart  from 
these  three  main  periods  of  poetry  upon  which  we  are  dwelling. 
But  the  second  period  should  not  be  entered  upon  without  notice 
of  a  poem  by  Bernard  Mandeville,  published  in  England  in  1706, 
under  the  title  The  Grumbling  Hive,  or  The  Knaves  turned 
Honest.  This  poem  should  not  be  overlooked  by  those  who 
desire  to  follow  the  many  lines  which  led  to  the  great  movement 
called  the  French  Revolution,  for  it  is  a  very  distinct  mark  of 
the  reaction  very  early  setting  in  against  the  evils  of  an  artificial 
life,  and  an  emphasis  upon  the  need  of  maintaining  life  in  the 
innocence  of  a  state  of  nature,  —  an  emphasis  deserving  of 
mention  as  occurring  long  before  Rousseau.  The  sununary  of 
it  by  Henry  Morley  cannot  be  improved  upon : 

Bees  in  a  hive  are  like  men  in  society ;  they  have  trades  and  professions 
as  men  have;  and  in  a  certain  hive  every  bee  became  so  painfully  con- 
scious of  the  knavery  of  all  hia  neighbors,  that  all  resolved  to  become 
honest.  When  they  did  so,  there  was  no  more  need  for  lawyers,  because 
there  was  no  injustice  to  guard  against;  no  need  for  doctors,  because  there 
was  an  end  of  ways  of  life  and  ways  of  eating  that  produced  disease; 
no  need  of  merchants,  because  there  was  no  demand  for  foreign  luxuries. 
Trades  based  upon  waste  and  folly  disappeared,  and  thus  with  honesty 
came  poverty.  The  standing  army  was  put  down,  because  the  honest 
hive, was  capable  of  no  aggressive  war.  It  was  attacked,  as  defenseless,  by 
the  bees  of  other  hives.  Every  bee  then  served  as  a  volunteer.  The  ene- 
mies were  driven  back,  but  honesty  had  found  its  way  at  last  to  such  sim- 
plicity of  life  that  the  hive  itself  was  judged  to  be  unnecessary.  The 
whole  swarm,  therefore,  flew  back  to  its  original  home  in  a  hollow  tree. 

2.    Second  Period  oj  Eighteenth-century  Poetry,  1 738-1 785 

1 738- 1 785.  —  The  second  period  of  eighteenth-century  poetry, 
from  1738  to  1785  ,was  like  the  first,  with  this  difference,  —  that 


THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  147 

it  advanced  beyond  the  prevalent  tendency  of  the  first  period  in 
a  nearer  approach  to  nature  and,  therefore,  in  less  deference  to 
the  use  of  the  key  "  held  by  the  old  masters." 

In  1738  Samuel  Johnson,  destitute  of  this  world's  goods,  sham- 
bling-gaited,  near-sighted,  a  curiosity  to  look  upon,  but  in  all 
things  of  the  mind  and  of  the  moral  life  fearlessly  sincere,  and  at 
last  in  old  age  to  be  recognized  as  filled  with  the  purest  love 
and  tenderness,  —  a  man  in  all  essentials  of  lofty  grandeur,  — 
published  a  poem  entitled  London,  and  in  1749  one  entitled  The 
Vanity  of  Human  Wishes.  London  was  an  imitation  of  one  of 
the  satires  of  the  Latin  poet,  Juvenal.  It  became  popular 
at  once,  though  it  contained  the  only  spark  of  insincerity  which 
his  whole  life  revealed,  for  it  was  written  in  the  heroic  couplets 
of  Pope  and  it  affected  to  scorn  the  city  of  London,  which  he 
was  really  beginning  to  love  most  passionately.  The  Vanity 
of  Human  Wishes  is  also  an  experiment  in  heroic  couplets,  and 
also  in  imitation  of  Juvenal ;  but  it  is  graver,  even  to  melancholy, 
than  London.  Its  melancholy  is  most  thoughtful,  preluding  the 
undue  gravity  which  was  to  prevail  throughout  the  entire  period, 
and  which  amounted  almost  to  hypochondria  in  Robert  Blair's 
morbid  The  Grave.    Then,  when  we  read  in  Edward  Young  of 

The  worm  to  riot  in  that  rose  so  red, 

we  find  a  hand  reaching  out  to  Edgar  Allan  Poe,  with  his  Con- 
queror Worm.  The  famous  work  of  Edward  Young  was  the 
Night  Thoughts  on  Life,  Death,  and  Immortality.  Young  and 
Blair  were  more  sincere  —  they  were  entirely  sincere  —  than 
Thomas  Gray,  however. 

Thomas  Gray.  —  Perhaps  Thomas  Gray  was  less  sincere  in 
expression  than  he  was  in  his  own  uncommunicated  thoughts ; 
for,  as  Matthew  Arnold  said  of  him,  "  He  never  spoke  out.'* 
There  are  few  poems  more  often  memorized   than   Gray's 


148  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

Elegy  in  a  Country  Churchyard.  Fortunately  it  is  less  tinged 
with  the  melancholy  mental  sickness  of  the  time  than  were 
the  poems  of  many  of  his  contemporaries.  It  is  less  melan- 
choly than  his  own  ode  On  a  Distant  Prospect  of  Eton  Col- 
lege,  for  in  the  Elegy  the  artistry  of  the  man  was  at  work 
more  than  was  the  pressure  of  the  melancholy  of  his  soul, 
which  is  so  strong  in  the  other  poem.  The  Elegy  is  unsurpassed 
for  its  exquisite  expression  of  so  much  that  is  distinctly  English 
in  reflective  thought.  Its  author  represented  in  this  poem  what 
was  so  appealing  to  his  contemporary,  Goldsmith,  the  awaken- 
ing spirit  of  English  democracy.  It  may  be  said  of  the  Elegy 
that  no  other  one  poem  is  so  fully  characteristic  of  the  entire 
eighteenth  century.  Thomas  Gray  should  be  read  for  his  con- 
tributions to  the  literature  of  letter-writing,  so  well  begun  in 
English  literature  by  Lady  Rachel  Russell  in  the  later  years 
of  the  preceding  century,  as  well  as  for  his  polished  verse. 

Minor  poetry  to  1785.  —  William  Collins  in  1748  wrote  an 
ode  or  elegy  upon  the  death  of  James  Thomson,  beginning,  "  In 
yonder  grave  a  Druid  lies."  No  stronger  tribute  could  have 
been  paid  to  the  essentially  British  nature  of  the  sort  of  poetry 
which  Thomson  and  his  school  were  writing.  Collins,  a  year 
earlier,  in  1 747,  had  published  a  volume  of  twelve  Odes.  Among 
these  The  Passions  has  been  a  favorite  with  declaimers.  His 
Ode  to  Evening  brings  the  poetry  of  the  day  close  to  the 
aerial  music  of  Keats.  No  lines  are  more  characteristic  of 
him  than  these : 

How  sleep  the  brave  who  sink  to  rest, 
By  all  their  country's  wishes  blest ! 
When  Spring,  with  dewy  fingers  cold, 
Returns  to  deck,  their  hallowed  mould, 
She  there  shall  dress  a  sweeter  sod 
Than  fancy's  feet  have  ever  trod. 


THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  149 

By  fairy  hands  their  knell  is  rung; 
By  forms  unseen  their  dirge  is  sung ; 
There  honour  comes,  a  pilgrim  gray, 
To  bless  the  turf  that  wraps  their  clay; 
And  freedom  shall  awhile  repair, 
To  dwell,  a  weeping  hermit,  there ! 

This  is  delicately  melodious,  gently  stirring,  and  only  faintly 
melancholy. 

James  Thomson  did  some  of  his  work  during  this  second 
period  of  the  poetry  of  the  century,  though  most  of  it  during  the 
first  period.  The  second  period  saw  the  appearance  of  The  Castle 
of  Indolence.  This  poem  Thomson  wrote  in  the  Spenserian  or 
nine-lined  stanza.  Indolence  he  represents  as  a  false  enchanter 
who  harbors  lotus-eating  captives  in  his  embowered  castle, 
but  is  finally  conquered  by  a  Knight  of  Arts  and  Industry.  In 
its  allegorical  nature  the  poem  might  be  one  of  the  late  nine- 
teenth century.  In  its  unemotional  manner,  too,  it  is  rather 
out  of  its  date,  which  is  1748.  Many  consider  this  poem  much 
superior  to  the  same  author's  Seasons. 

Between  the  years  1760  and  1770,  at  which  latter  date  he  was 
only  eighteen  years  of  age,  Thomas  Chatterton  wrote  the  most 
remarkable  poems  that  have  ever  appeared  in  print  from  so 
young  a  poet.  Ballads,  semi-lyrical  tragedies,  heroic  poems,  in- 
terludes, all  were  written  in  mock-antique  spelling;  which  the 
author  found  in  Kersey's  Dictionary,  and  not  in  the  literature 
of  the  fifteenth  century,  as  his  contemporaries  thought.  These 
poems  were  full  of  rich  but  unrestrained  melodies,  such  as 
we  call  romantic.  Most  of  Chatterton's  poems  are  known  un- 
der the  general  title  of  the  Rowley  Poems,  so-called  because 
they  purported  to  have  been  written  by  a  mythical  priest, 
named  T.  Rowley. 

About  the  same  time  that  Chatterton  was  writing,  James 


I50  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

Macpherson  (in  1762)  published  what  was  claimed  by  its  author 
to  be  a  series  of  translations  of  epic  poems  from  the  Gaelic,  or 
ancient  Caledonian  tongue.  These  poems  were  filled  with  highly 
stimulating  mysteries,  and  good  melodies,  too,  for  that  age. 
Indeed,  they  affected  the  whole  course  of  European  litera- 
ture from  that  time  on.  The  French  Chateaubriand,  the  Eng- 
lish Byron  and  even  Wordsworth,  and  the  German  Goethe  would 
hardly  have  had  the  world  ready  for  them  but  for  the  work  of 
Ossiatiy  as  Macpherson  called  the  writer  whom  he  claimed  to  be 
translating.  Primitive,  plaintive,  pathetic,  melancholy,  the 
epics  were  to  those  who  lived  in  that  age,  though  to  us  insincere, 
pompous,  and  pretentious.  The  acceptance  of  Ossian's  work 
was  due  to  two  facts:  first,  that  people  then  were  wearying  of 
the  correctness  of  the  classic  literary  form,  and  second,  that  they 
were  hungering  for  something  in  ideas  remote  from  their  imme- 
diate experience,  or  from  any  easily  imagined  combination  of 
their  experiences.  Macpherson  gave  that  something  to  them, 
especially  in  his  chief  epic  poem,  Fingal. 

Bishop  Percy  fell  in  with  the  work  of  Chatterton  and  of  Os- 
sian,  and  in  1765  published  his  Reliques  of  Ancient  English 
Poetry.  The  ballads  and  romances  contained  in  Percy's 
Reliques  were  medieval  rather  than  ancient.  They  had  an  im- 
mense influence  in  furthering  the  already  aroused  interest  in 
things  that  were  primeval  as  well  as  medieval.  Their  success 
illustrates  the  increasing  interest  in  freedom  of  expression,  in 
revolt  from  classic  formalism.  The  tastes  of  the  eighteenth 
century  were  broadly  various,  as  we  have  already  suggested. 
That  this  is  true,  one  may  see  clearly  if  he  will  but  read  almost 
any  passage  from  Pope  and  think  of  the  enthusiasm  it  created, 
and  then  turn  to  Ossian,  with  knowledge  of  the  equal  enthusiasm 
aroused  by  him,  and  read  from  his  prose-poetry  any  one  of  many 
such  passages  as 


THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  151 

CuchuUin  sits  at  Lego's  lake,  at  the  dark  rolling  of  waters.  Night  is 
around  the  hero ;  and  his  thousands  spread  on  the  heath ;  a  hundred  oaks 
bum  in  the  midst;  the  feast  of  shells  is  smoking  wide.  Carril  strikes  the 
harp,  beneath  a  tree ;  his  gray  locks  glitter  in  the  beam ;  the  rustling  blast 
of  night  is  near,  and  light  his  aged  hair.  This  song  is  of  the  blue  Togorma, 
and  of  its  chief,  Cuchullin's  friend. 

The  Deserted  Village  of  Oliver  Goldsmith  is  still  a  popular 
poem.  It  was  printed  in  1770.  Its  author's  interest  was  in 
the  life  of  common  man. 

But  a  bold  peasantry,  their  country's  pride, 
"When  once  destroyed,  can  never  be  supplied 

strikes  the  keynote  of  much  of  the  thought  of  this  Irishman, 
and  helped  to  open  the  way  for  a  reawakening  of  interest  in 
England's  mainstay,  her  country  folk.  Goldsmith  was  neither 
very  emotional  nor  very  didactic ;  rather,  he  attempted  calmly 
to  describe  only  what  he  had  seen.  But  he  served  to  call  at- 
tention Strongly  to  the  life  of  the  fields. 

James  Beattie,  also,  in  his  Minstrel  (1771)  shows  a  notable 
love  for  the  beauty  of  nature  and  for  communion  with  her,  thus 
carrying  the  literary  expression  of  that  time  farther  towards 
the  romantic  interest  of  later  days.  The  love  of  the  visible  forms 
of  nature  was  constantly  widening  and  deepening  as  the  century 
aged. 

This  second  period  upon  which  we  are  now  dwelling  came 
to  an  end  with  the  Task  of  William  Cowper,  1785.  Cowper 
wrote  many  religious  hymns  such  as  those  with  which  the 
Wesleyan  movement  had  flooded  the  country  earlier  in  the  cen- 
tury. Cowper  was  gently  humorous  in  John  Gilpin's  Ride,  and 
mildly  pathetic  in  his  lines  to  his  Mother^ s  Picture;  in  these  and 
in  all  else  he  was  natural  in  feeling.  He  was  also  greatly  inter- 
ested in  the  classics  of  Greece  and  Rome,  and  translated  some  of 


152  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

them  into  English.  In  this  variety  of  work  and  interest  he  was  a 
kind  of  epitome  of  the  age.  It  is  striking,  indeed,  how  much 
an  inseparable  part  of  their  epoch  the  men  of  the  eighteenth 
century  were ;  but  equally  striking  that  they,  with  their  epoch 
were  transitional  in  character,  leaning  much  upon  the  past  and 
yet  definitely,  as  we  now  see,  prophetic  of  the  future.  Cowper's 
lines 

Lovely  indeed  the  mimic  works  of  art, 

But  Nature's  works  far  lovelier 

denote  the  pending  change  from  artificiality  to  naturalness  in 
the  communication  of  thought  and  feeling  in  poetry.  The  Task 
was  his  most  important  work.  Cowper  loved  English  liberty, 
but  he  gloomily  mourned  over  the  conventionality,  the  injus- 
tice, the  cruelty,  which  infected  what  he  thought  to  be  decaying 
society. 

My  ear  is  pained, 

My  soul  is  sick,  with  every  day's  report 

Of  wrong  and  outrage  with  which  earth  is  filled. 

There  is  no  flesh  in  man's  obdurate  heart, 

It  does  not  feel  for  man. 

Cowper  has  been  called  the  "  father  "  of  that  naturalistic 
reaction  in  poetry  which  is  called  English  romanticism,  but,  as 
is  usually  the  case,  the  name  romanticism  is  confused  when 
it  is  applied  to  such  faithful  realistic  description,  not  easy  to 
parallel  elsewhere,  as  we  find  in  the  following : 

The  cattle  mourn  in  comers,  where  the  fence 

Screens  them,  and  seem  half  petrified  to  sleep 

In  unrecumbent  sadness.    There  thev  wait 

» 

Their  wonted  fodder ;   not  like  hungering  man, 
Fretful  if  unsupplied ;   but  silent,  meek. 
And  patient  of  the  slow-paced  swain's  delay. 
He  from  the  stack  carves  out  the  accustomed  load, 


THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  1 53 

Deep-plunging,  and  again  deep  plunging  oft, 
His  broad,  keen  knife  into  the  solid  mass ; 
Smooth  as  a  wall  the  upright  remnant  stands, 
With  such  undeviating  and  even  force 
He  severs  it  away. 

Great  as  was  the  art  of  the  authors  of  the  first  two  periods  of 
the  poetry  of  the  eighteenth  century,  yet  they,  including  even 
Pope,  had  not  the  artistic  feeling  to  put  much  of  their  work  in 
any  but  an  intellectual  way. 

3.    Third  Period  0}  Eighteenth-century  Poetry^  1 785-1 798 

1785-1798.  —  The  third  poetic  period  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury ushered  in  the  so-called  era  of  Romanticism.  Yet  roman- 
ticism was  not  new.  Every  age  has  had  romanticists  within  it. 
Shakespeare,  almost  two  centuries  earlier,  was  the  greatest  of 
all  romanticists.  But  the  closing  years  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, together  with  the  opening  decades  of  the  nineteenth,  were  so 
filled  with  important  men  who  had  that  curious  interest  in  the 
strange  aspects  of  human  experience  which  we  call  romanticism, 
that  by  common  consent  we  give  the  name  romantic  to  their 
age. 

The  word  "  romance  "  has  traveled  so  far  from  its  home  in  its 
meaning  that  it  would  not  recognize  its  parents  if  it  were  to  re- 
turn to  them.  Rome,  Roman,  romance  (or  Rome-derived) 
languages,  qualities  of  subject  matter  and  of  speech  that  belong 
to  the  middle  and  western  Mediterranean  lands,  the  people  who 
used  the  languages  derived  and  modified  chiefly  from  the  Latin 
of  Rome  (French,  Spanish,  Italian,  —  "  Romance  languages  and 
literature  ")j  interesting  and  quaint  departures  from  reality, 
exaggerated  grotesqueness,  things  remote  or  unusual  in  time  or 
in  place  or  in  both,  intimate  and  feelingful  attitude  towards 
external  nature,  spiritual  as  opposed  to  material,  the  personally 


154 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE 


expressive,  vivid  interest  in  common  things,  insoluble  mystery 
and  strangeness,  —  along  these  many  roads,  and  along  still  other 
roads,  has  the  word  traveled. 

Hawthorne  thought  that  the  romantic  artist  was  one  who 
would  not  commit  the  unpardonable  sin  of  swerving  aside  from 
the  truth  of  the  human  heart,  yet  would  ''mingle  the  Marvel- 
ous "  as  a  slight,  delicate,  and  evanescent  flavor  *'  of  the  dish 
offered  to  the  public."  The  use  of ''  legendary  mist  "  for  "  pic- 
turesque effect,"  he  thought,  would  aid  the  romanticist  in  achiev- 
ing his  purpose.  He  said  that  "  artfully  and  airily  "  to  re- 
move story  and  characters  from  the  ordinary  lines  of  life  is 
romantic. 

Legendary  mist,  or  its  equivalent  in  some  fashion,  has  become 
the  chief  element  of  romance  in  the  theory  of  most  of  those  who 
have  had  to  tell  what  romanticism  is,  and,  most  conveniently, 
the  legends  considered  by  the  theorists  have  been  taken  in  the 
main,  —  not  from  very  ancient  sources,  because  they  would 
seem  too  far  remote  to  permit  the  reader  to  accept  them  as  if 
they  were  true,  —  but  from  medieval  times.  The  middle  ages 
are  near  enough  not  to  seem  unlifelike;  and  it  has  been  the 
easiest  thing  to  turn  to  them  for  vast  quantities  of  material 
with  which  to  secure  the  romantic  effect  of  insoluble  mystery 
or  strangeness. 

Yet  in  the  long  run  the  instinct  of  the  public,  even  in  mat- 
ters of  highly  artistic  importance  is  found  to  be  correct.  And 
the  instinct  of  the  public  which  fastens  itself  so  readily  upon 
the  love  story  and  considers  it  as  the  standard  type  of  what 
is  romantic,  is  about  as  nearly  right  as  can  be.  Nothing  is 
more  wonderful  or  more  strange,  after  all,  than  the  impulse  to 
love  and  all  that  is  associated  with  it ;  and  while  by  no  means 
is  it  true  that  the  love  story  covers  the  romantic  field  entirely, 
yet  the  love  story  is  by  all  means  more  truly  typical  of  what  is 


THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  155 

romantic  than  are  events  and  situations  in  times  remote  or  in 
places  strange. 

It  is  distinctly  true,  as  Walter  Pater  has  said,  that  in  the 
overcharged  atmosphere  of  the  middle  ages  there  are  many 
unworked  sources  of  romantic  effect,  of  a  strange  beauty,  — 
much  that  will  satisfy  our  curiosity  and  our  love  of  the  beautiful, 
—  hence  the  middle  ages  furnish  ready-made  the  most  usable 
material  for  illustration  of  romantic  thought  and  feeling.  But 
the  same  things  exist  in  the  twentieth  century ;  only  they  are 
not  so  easy  to  isolate  from  their  surroundings.  Intensity  of 
mood  or  strong  interest  in  what  has  hitherto  not  been  recognized, 
or  not  fully  appreciated,  is  the  spirit  of  romanticism,  rather  than 
interest  in  a  far-away  time  or  in  an  unfamiliar  geographical  lo- 
cation. 

Nor  is  it  a  highly  imaginative  quality,  in  the  sense  of  a  lofty 
way  of  looking  at  things,  that  makes  up  the  romantic  atmos- 
phere. Wordsworth  is  almost  universally  recognized  as  the 
''  apostle  "  of  the  romantic  movement  in  England,  and  yet 
he  places  the  most  conscious  restraints  upon  imaginative  flight 
in  what  he  considers  his  best  work.  The  Excursion.  There  is 
no  exposition  of  romanticism  that  would  not  describe  realism  as 
well,  if  it  should  take  as  an  illustration  such  lines  as  these  from 
Wordsworth,  — 

And  I  have  traveled  far  as  Hull  to  see 

What  clothes  he  might  have  left  or  other  property. 

Interest  in  things  hitherto  not  sufficiently  recognized,  and  treat- 
ment of  them  in  such  a  way  as  to  suggest  that  in  them  there  are  • 
insoluble  mysteries  and  strange  and  beautiful  and  wonderful 
powers  of  arousing  curiosity,  that  is  romantic.  Remoteness 
from  the  hitherto  unexperienced  rather  than  remoteness  in 
time  and  place  or  in  either  of  them  gives  the  romantic  atmosphere. 


156  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

Definition  of  Romanticism.  —  Romance  might  be  very  simply 
defined  as  that  which  represents  the  mysterious,  or  at  least 
the  marvelous,  in  either  real  or  fancied  life. 

Robert  Burns.  —  Now,  this  third  period  of  English  verse  in 
the  eighteenth  century,  which  was  also  the  easily  marked  be- 
ginning of  the  "  romantic  movement,"  opened  with  the  work 
of  one  who,  not  less  than  any  man  who  ever  lived,  practiced 
the  maxim  that  ''  there  is  but  one  school,  that  of  Nature," 
though  he  did  not  look  to  masters  old  or  new  for  a  key.  That 
man  was  Robert  Burns.  Burns  neglected  any  care  or  thought 
of  what  others  had  done,  and  for  his  inspiration  went  directly 
to  the  sources  of  experience,  of  thought,  and  of  feeling. 

This  song-intoxicated  "  Ayreshire  ploughman "  published 
his  first  volume  of  poems  in  1786.  Elemental  feeling,  instinct, 
not  classic  masters,  not  intellect  even,  dominated  this  man. 
Here  is  his  doctrine  of  the  matter  that  had  troubled  all  his 
predecessors  since  Dryden : 

The  Muse,  nae  poet  ever  fand  her, 
Till  by  himser  he  learned  to  wander, 
Adown  some  trotting  bum's  meander, 

And  no  think  lang ; 
O  sweet  to  stray,  and  pensive  ponder 

A  heart-felt  sang. 

John  G.  Lockhart's  Life  of  Burns  and  Thomas  Carlyle*s 
Essay  on  Burns  are  among  the  most  read  of  biographical  works. 
This  is  true  not  only  because  they  are  so  well  written,  but  be- 
cause the  subject  treated  in  them  is  one  of  the  most  interesting. 
Burns,  like  Shakespeare,  came  from  the  ranks  of  the  poor, 
though  Shakespeare  was  of  the  town  and  Burns  of  the  country. 
Burns  suffered  many  hardships  from  his  early  poverty,  and 
sympathized  strongly  with  all  weak  and  downtrodden  crea- 
tures.   He  turned  aside  his  plow  to  save  the  mouse  nest  and  the 


THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  157 

daisy,  brooded  over  the  pathos  of  the  one  and  the  beauty  of 
the  other,  and  then  sang  of  them  in  his  poems.  He  was  much 
influenced  by  the  contemporary  wave  of  democracy  then  sweep- 
ing over  the  political  and  social  world.  Perhaps  no  man  has 
ever  desired  more  strongly  the  realization  of  many  a  poet's 
dream  of  the  identification  of  the  democracy  and  the  aristocracy, 
the  coming  of  all  people  upon  one  level,  and  that  level  the 
highest.  Neither  leisure,  nor  dress,  nor  authority,  nor  title, 
nor  wealth  makes  a  man,  in  Burns's  opinion,  but  good  sense 
and  native  worth.  A  man's  a  man  if  endowed  with  sense  and 
character,  and  to  Burns  the  time  is  coming  when 

man  to  man,  the  warld  o'er, 
Shall  brothers  be  for  a'  that. 

Burns  was  born  in  1759  and  died  in  1796 ;  but  into  those  few 
years  were  crowded  many  hard  and  sad  experiences,  and,  at 
times,  many  pleasing  ones  both  among  the  socially  great  and  the 
lowly,  for  he  was  welcomed  in  cultured  Edinburgh  as  well  as  in 
the  plowman's  cottage. 

Few  can  read  his  passionately  earnest  songs  against  oppres- 
sion and  in  praise  of  loyalty  and  humanity  without  being  moved 
to  recognition  of  the  greatness  of  Burns.  Passionate  treatment 
of  love  is  the  chief  interest  of  Burns,  however,  and  to  him  an  easy 
task,  for  his  singing  robes  were  ever  on ;  and  perhaps  fullness 
of  blood  rather  than  of  brain  accounts  for  the  buoyant  force  and 
spontaneity  of  nearly  all  that  he  penned.  The  Jolly  Beggars, 
The  CoUer^s  Saturday  Night,  Tarn  0^  Shanter,  The  Banks  0' 
Doon,  Afton  Water,  Highland  Mary,  To  Mary  in  Heaven,  Ban- 
nockburn,  Comin'  through  the  Rye,  My  Heart's  in  the  High- 
lands, and  For  A'  That  and  A'  That,  and  numbers  of  other 
poems  by  him  are  known  wherever  English-speaking  people  read. 

William  Blake.  —  The  Songs  of  Innocence  and  Songs  of  Ex- 


158  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

periencey  written  by  William  Blake,  were  Elizabethan  in  their 
music,  but  in  subject  matter  they  were  very  like  that  of  the 
nineteenth-century  writers  who  were  interested  in  the  animal 
world  and  in  the  cry  of  the  children.  Charles  Lamb,  a  *'  belated 
Elizabethan,"  wrote  of  Blake,  "  His  pictures,  one  in  particular, 
The  Canterbury  Pilgrims  (far  above  Stothard's),  have  great 
merit,  but  are  hard,  dry,  and  yet  with  grace.  He  has  written 
a  catalogue  of  them,  with  a  most  spirited  criticism  on  Chaucer, 
but  mystical  and  full  of  vision.  His  poems  have  sold  hitherto 
only  in  manuscript.  I  have  never  read  them,  but  a  friend  at 
my  desire  procured  the  Sweep  Song.  There  is  one  to  a  Tiger, 
which  I  heard  recited,  beginning. 

Tiger,  Tiger,  burning  bright, 
Thro'  the  deserts  of  the  night, 

which  is  glorious.  But  alas !  I  have  not  the  book,  for  the  man 
is  flown,  whither  I  know  not,  to  Hades,  or  a  Mad  House.  But  I 
must  look  on  him  as  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  persons  of 
the  age."  Blake's  Songs  of  Innocence  were  published  in  1789, 
and  the  Songs  of  Experience  in  1794. 

Lyrical  ballads.  —  The  work  of  the  Lake  Poets,  as  Robert 
Southey,  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge,  and  William  Wordsworth 
are  often  called,  began  during  the  seventeen-nineties.  Their 
writings  will  be  dealt  with  more  fully  in  the  chapter  on  the  Early 
Nineteenth  Century.  But  they  were  well  under  way  in  their 
labors  before  1799.  The  incidents  of  the  French  Revolution 
affected  them  greatly.  Southey,  sick  at  heart  at  what  "  every 
day's  report  "  brought  of  human  wrong  and  human  misery,  and 
wild  with  resentment  at  "  what  man  has  made  of  man,"  pub- 
lished in  1 794  his  revolutionary  poem  entitled  Wat  Tyler. 

The  most  noteworthy  thing  done  by  Coleridge  and  Words- 
worth during  this  decade  was  the  joint  publication  of  a  volume 


THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  159 

under  the  title  of  Lyrical  Ballads.  This  little  book,  in  the  first 
edition,  contained  Coleridge's  Ancient  Mariner,  and  Words- 
worth's We  are  Seven  and  Tintern  Abbey.  In  these  poems,  and 
others  included  in  the  same  volume,  four  in  all  by  Coleridge  and 
nineteen  in  all  by  Wordsworth,  are  found  the  chief  elements 
of  romanticism ;  namely,  love  of  man,  love  of  animals,  love  of 
nature  generally,  interest  in  the  supernatural,  interest  in  the 
grotesque,  intense  curiosity  about  the  beautiful  and  about  the 
insoluble  mystery  and  strangeness  that  colors  not  only  those 
things  farthest  from  ordinary  experience,  but  also  those  met 
with  in  the  most  common  situations  of  everyday  life.  "  The 
imagination,"  Wordsworth  said,  "  may  be  called  forth  as  imperi- 
ously by  incidents  in  the  humblest  departments  of  life,"  as  those 
in  the  seas  ''  out  of  place,  out  of  time,"  of  Coleridge's  fancy. 
Wordsworth's  theory  of  writing  was  that  things  taken  from  hum- 
ble and  rustic  life  were  the  best  of  all  things  to  write  of,  and 
that  they  should  be  clothed  "  in  a  selection  of  language  really 
used  by  men  "  at  the  same  time  that  they  should  be  so  tinted 
by  the  imagination  that  "  ordinary  things  should  be  presented 
to  the  mind  in  an  unusual  aspect." 

Thomas  Campbell.  —  A  curious  illustration  of  how  hard  the 
eighteenth-century  methods  and  ideals  died  in  literature  is  in 
the  work  of  Thomas  Campbell,  a  Scotchman,  who  hoped  to 
be  called  "  the  Pope  of  Glasgow."  In  1799  he  published  what 
amounted  to  an  essay  in  verse,  after  the  manner  of  Thomson 
and  Gray  and  Pope,  correct  in  its  formal  rhythm,  but  artifi- 
cial in  its  feeling  for  nature,  and  showing  his  great  annoyance 
at  the  revolutionary  requirements  for  poetic  language  which 
Wordsworth  was  setting  up.  This  poem  was  called  Pleasures  of 
Hope.  We  shall  see  later  that,  after  a  visit  to  Germany,  Camp- 
bell returned  and  out-Wordsworthed  Wordsworth  in  the  high- 
spiritedness  of  his  romantic  ballads. 


l6o  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

Eighteenth-century  drama.  —  We  must  not  overlook  the 
dramatic  work  of  the  eighteenth  century.  WiUiam  Congreve's 
splendid  career  as  a  dramatist  belongs  in  time  to  the  seventeenth 
century,  his  best  works  being  two  comedies  of  manners,  Love 
for  Love,  and  The  Way  of  the  World,  published  in  1695  and  1700, 
respectively.  Yet  he  is  rather  of  the  time  of  Sheridan  and 
Goldsmith,  a  full  seventy-five  years  later,  in  his  spirit,  than  of 
the  time  of  Dryden.  George  Farquhar  followed  Congreve  with 
The  Constant  Couple,  in  1700,  The  Recruiting  Officer,  in  1706, 
and  The  Beaux'  Stratagem,  in  1707.  Farquhar  himself  said  that 
**  Comedy  is  no  more  at  present  than  a  well-framed  tale  hand- 
somely told  as  an  agreeable  vehicle  for  counsel  or  reproof." 
This  was  his  theory  of  comic  drama,  but  in  practice  his  reproof 
of  the  age  overflowed  with  the  brilliant  wit  and  cheerfulness  of 
its  author.  The  hero  of  The  Recruiting  Officer  was  thought  to 
be  Farquhar  himself. 

In  1728  John  Gay's  ^eg^ar'5  0/>era  appeared.  The  song  with 
its  two  lines 

How  happy  could  I  be  with  either, 
Were  t'other  dear  Charmer  away ! 

has  helped  to  continue  interest  in  the  songs,  at  least,  of  this 
opera  until  this  day.  Swift  had  once  remarked,  "What  an 
odd,  pretty  sort  of  thing  a  Newgate  pastoral  might  make,"  and 
Gay  produced  the  Beggar's  Opera  in  demonstration  of  such  a 
pastoral. 

Addison's  ponderous  drama,  entitled  Cato,  was  brought 
out  in  1 713.  It  was  received  with  an  enthusiasm  on  the 
part  of  the  public  which  is  astonishing  to  us  now.  The  drama 
lacks  all  vivacity ;  yet  Voltaire  called  it  "  the  first  rational 
tragedy."  It  was  French  in  its  form,  and  in  all  ways  satisfied 
the  demands  of  French  classic  drama  that  it  should  imitate  the 


THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  l6l 

Greek  drama.  Cato  had  the  approving  smile  of  all  the  great 
among  Addison's  contemporaries  and  placed  the  English  stage 
securely  in  a  position  which  was  approved  on  the  continent  as 
well  as  at  home.  Doubtless  this  had  much  to  do  with  the  tem- 
porary popularity  of  the  drama  of  Cato. 

Finally,  Goldsmith  and  Sheridan  appeared.  These  men  be- 
tween 1768  and  1778  produced  dramas  that  will,  apparently,  be 
acted  for  all  time,  for  they  are  as  popular  now  as  they  were 
one  hundred  and  thirty  years  ago,  and  not  only  that,  but  they 
contain  representations  of  the  abiding  characteristics  of  hu- 
man life  and  mind.  Goldsmith's  Good-natured  Man  and 
She  Stoops  to  Conquer  J  and  Sheridan's  The  Rivals  and  School 
for  Scandal  are  so  well-known  that  they  need  no  dwell- 
ing upon.  They  speak  for  themselves  yearly  upon  both 
the  popular  and  the  "  high-brow "  stage.  Their  authors 
were  Irishmen,  and  the  Irish  grace  and  wit  permeate  every 
scene  they  wrote.  To  say  that  they  were  extremely  pop- 
ular throughout  the  entire  nineteenth  century,  though  that  cen- 
tury demanded  a  very  different  kind  of  drama  from  its  own  au- 
thors, is  to  say  all  that  is  necessary  in  evidence  of  their  perma- 
nent qualities. 

The  closet  drama  and  the  stage  play.  —  The  dra;ma  from  that 
time  on  to  the  present  has  been  clearly  either  a  thing  to  be 
played  or  not  to  be  played,  either  a  stage  or  a  "  closet  "  drama. 
It  is  evident  from  Sheridan's  success  what  it  is  that  will  always 
admit  of  successful  revival,  and  what  is,  therefore,  a  stage  play 
and  not  a  poetic  drama  alone.  The  Elizabethans  invested  poetry 
with  such  a  glory  and  such  force  that  the  speaker  must  act  it. 
Dryden  weakened  the  poetic  effect  in  his  dramas,  and  Otway  and 
Rowe,  at  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century,  in  their 
dramas  wrote  little  that  could  be  more  than  merely  de- 
claimed, not  acted,  though  Otway's  Venice  Preserved  is  still 


1 62  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

occasionally  staged.  The  reason  for  the  lack  of  success  in  th^ 
playing  is  that  the  '*  poetic  "  drama  usually  has  in  it  more  of  the 
lamp  and  the  scholar  than  of  true  poetry.  This  is  the  situation  : 
that  henceforward  the  poetic  drama  and  the  stage  play  follow 
separate  lines,  the  former  holding  as  strictly  to  the  Shakespear- 
ean tradition  as  the  ability  of  the  writer  will  allow,  and  the 
latter  undertaking  to  reveal  its  characters  and  suggest  its 
action  in  language  as  nearly  as  possible  like  the  changing  lan- 
guage of  real  life.  So  much  is  this  true  of  the  stage  play  that 
in  its  problem-play  aspect  it  often  fails  to  be  a  beautiful  thing 
(the  poetic  form  must  be  beautiful  to  be  poetic),  and  degenerates 
into  something  deeply  and  often  offensively  ugly. 

III.  The  Essayists 

Journalism.  —  Daniel  Defoe  begins  the  list  of  essayists,  as 
well  as  of  poets,  in  the  eighteenth  century.  His  Shortest  Way 
with  the  Dissenters  started  a  new  form  of  literature,  written  with 
the  desire  of  reaching  all  who  read.  It  did  not  begin  the  essay, 
but  it  did  begin  the  journalistic  "  article." 

Two  years  after  the  publication  of  this  essay,  Defoe  began 
issuing  his  journal,  the  Review.  It  was  published  twice  a  week 
for  a  year,  and  then  three  times  a  week  for  seven  years.  This 
was  not  the  first  English  journal,  but  was  the  first  to  give  thought- 
ful comment  upon  affairs  of  public  interest,  that  is,  to  perform 
the  editorial  function.  Defoe  in  this  journal  dealt  with  some 
questions  of  morals  through  the  fiction  of  a  Club,  called  the 
Scandalous  Club,  and  this  probably  suggested  to  Richard  Steele 
the  publication  of  his  journal,  named  the  Toiler,  which  began 
publication  in  1709.  Steele  ran  the  Tatler  very  successfully, 
so  much  so  that  the  periodical  essay  became  an  established 
force  in  literature.    After  the  Tatter's  success  had  been  made 


THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  163 

certain,  the  cautious  Joseph  Addison  began  contributing  to 
the  paper.  The  purpose  of  Steele,  who  was  much  the  more 
vigorous  writer  of  these  two,  upon  questions  of  the  day,  was  to 
restore  to  society  the  sound  and  wholesome  tone  which  it  had 
had  before  the  Restoration.  This  periodical  was  intended  for 
women  as  well  as  for  men,  and  Steele  did  a  great  deal  to  break 
down  the  weak  vanity  of  the  women  of  the  time  and  to  raise 
the  tone  of  the  speech  by  men  concerning  women. 

After  about  two  years  the  Taller  was  succeeded  by  the  Spec- 
lalor,  March  i,  1711.  Of  the  555  papers  published  in  this  last- 
named  periodical,  Addison  wrote  274  and  Steele  wrote  236. 
Pope  contributed  one  paper.  Other  contributors  were  John 
Hughes  and  Eustace  Budgell,  the  latter  furnishing  many  ideas 
to  his  cousin,  Joseph  Addison.  The  Speclalor  gave  to  literature 
the  "  Club  "  of  the  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  papers ;  but  it  must 
never  be  forgotten  that  Steele  was  responsible  for  Addison's 
becoming  a  journalist.  The  Speclalor  was  succeeded  by  the 
Guardian,  the  Englishman,  the  Reader,  the  Plebeian,  the  Thealre, 
and  the  Spinster  (concerning  the  woolen  trade),  all  edited  by 
"  Dick  "  Steele.  Steele  had  the  quick  and  impulsive  temperament 
of  the  fearless  later  essayists,  Burke  and  Ruskin  and  Carlyle, 
while  Addison,  the  younger  man,  had  the  more  severely  classic 
temperament  of  Bacon,  Dryden,  and  Pope,  though  in  origin- 
ality he  was  inferior  to  each  of  these. 

Joseph  Addison.  —  The  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  papers  have 
been  much  read  in  the  schools.  Englishmen  love  them  deeply. 
They  describe  the  club  life  which  the  average  Englishman 
hugely  enjoys,  and  the  characters  of  Sir  Roger  and  of  Will  Honey- 
comb are  typical  of  men  he  sees  daily.  Many  ''  gentle  readers  " 
outside  of  England  are  enthusiastic  over  them,  but  the  matter 
in  the  papers  is  so  slight  and  the  language  so  evidently  weighed 
and  polished  beyond  all  need  for  such  light  matter  that  popular 


l64  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

enthusiasm  for  them  anywhere  but  in  England  is  difficult  to 
arouse.  However,  these  papers  ought  to  be  known  and  studied 
by  those  who  are  anxious  for  correctness  of  form  in  English 
writing.  Here  is  better  English  prose  than  in  either  Dryden  or 
Sir  Thomas  Browne ;  and  it  is  doubtful  if  any  English  prose  has 
equaled  the  best  prose  of  the  century  of  Addison.  But  much 
more  important  in  the  history  of  literature  than  the  Sir  Roger 
de  Coverley  papers  are  Addison's  essays  upon  the  Imagination, 
also  published  in  the  Spectator. 

The  Spectator  and  its  contemporaries  are  significant  in  the 
history  of  the  short-story.  Many  of  the  articles  in  these  period- 
icals were  intended  to  give  point  to  some  moral  question,  and 
the  writers  considered  the  most  pointed  way  to  handle  these 
questions  was  to  relate  some  brief  story,  with  its  meaning  clearly 
indicated.  Take  these  stories  out  of  their  didactic  framework, 
and  a  passably  good  modern  short-story  is  the  result. 

The  greatest  writers,  Dante,  Shakespeare,  Goethe,  Cer- 
vantes, Hugo,  have  never  founded  "  schools."  But  the  second- 
rate  men,  like  Addison,  and  even  Pope,  with  their  altogether 
too  "  Augustan,"  too  "  polite,"  too  formal  and  mechanically 
brilliant  style,  did  not  fail  to  draw  about  them  a  number  of 
imitators,  in  whose  weaker  minds,  because  they  had  not  the 
power  of  thought  of  their  masters,  thought  degenerated  into 
something  cold  and  vapid,  and  style  degenerated  into  man- 
nerism. 

Jonathan  Swift.  —  A  greater  mind  than  that  of  Defoe  or  of 
Steele  or  of  Addison  was  that  of  Jonathan  Swift,  a  man  of  English 
parentage,  but  Dean  of  St.  Patrick's  Cathedral  at  Dublin,  Ire- 
land. Thackeray  could  find  no  other  man  so  great  in  that  epoch 
as  Swift.  Addison  did  not  attain  his  own  faultless  style  until 
after  he  had  become  closely  acquainted  with  the  writings  of 
Swift ;  and  Steele  was  so  much  influenced  by  the  acidulous  Dean 


THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  165 

that  the  Tatler  printed  much  of  Steele's  work  as  by  one  of 
Swift's  characters,  Isaac  Bickerstaff .  Many  men  were  talented  in 
the  Great  Britain  of  the  time  of  Swift,  but  he  alone  was  the  great 
genius,  —  the  most  powerfully  original  man  of  his  time.  Un- 
fortunately, Swift  chose  always  to  be  a  satirist,  and  hence  much 
that  he  wrote  is  not  acceptable  to  the  average  reader.  The 
greatest  of  his  essays  was  The  Tale  of  a  Tub,  a  biting  satire  upon 
criticism,  describing  in  vitriolic  phrases  the  Goddess  of  Criti- 
cism drawn  in  a  chariot  by  geese.  The  Battle  of  the  Books  is 
almost  as  famous.  It  is  a  mock-heroic  account  of  a  desperate 
battle  between  ancient  and  modern  books.  These  two  essays 
were  published  in  1 704,  though  written  a  few  years  earlier. 

Oliver  Goldsmith.  —  An  author  with  a  clear  and  simple 
style  was  Oliver  Goldsmith,  who,  after  contributing  to  a  num- 
ber of  periodical  journals,  started  one  of  his  own,  known  as 
The  Bee.  In  this  he  published  many  Essays  which  were  later 
collected  in  book  form.  One  of  the  periodicals  produced  his 
Chinese  Letters,  afterwards  published  in  1762  as  The  Citizen 
of  the  World.  These  papers  represented  what  an  Oriental  saw 
and  thought  while  visiting  England.  Goldsmith  was  an  excellent 
sketcher  of  character,  as  well  as  a  mild  critic  of  society.  He  was 
not  able  to  make  the  characters  he  created  act  very  vigorously ; 
nor  did  he  see  in  society  the  corruption  which  Swift  so  clearly 
saw  and  poured  burning  maledictions  upon,  and  which  Cowper 
was  later  so  deeply  to  bemoan.  But  "  Where  is  now  a  man  who 
can  pen  an  essay  with  such  ease  and  elegance  as  Goldsmith?" 
asked  Dr.  Johnson. 

Samuel  Johnson.  —  The  Essays  of  Montaigne  had  been 
translated  from  the  French  into  English  by  John  Florio  as 
early  as  1693,  and  had  been  used  by  both  Shakespeare  and 
Bacon.  Montaigne's  essays  had  been  the  reflections  of  a  per- 
sonal view  of  himself  and  of  human  society,  while  those  of  Bacon 


i66  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

had  depended  for  their  weight  upon  impersonal  authority. 
Bacon  is  full  of  reference  to  others  for  support  of  his  thought, 
while  Montaigne  judged  all  ideas  and  all  moods  by  his  own 
thought  and  his  own  feeling.  Most  of  the  essayists  of  the  days 
of  Swift  and  Steele  and  Goldsmith  were  more  of  the  type  of 
Montaigne  than  of  Bacon.  But  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson,  in  his  peri- 
odicals, the  Rambler  and  the  Idler,  turned  aside  from  the  grace 
and  lightness  which  he  acknowledged  to  be  so  good  in  Goldsmith, 
to  the  ponderous  and  authoritative  tone  of  Bacon,  Still,  many 
of  his  essays  are  most  readable.  One  on  The  Advantages  of  Liv- 
ing in  a  Garret  is  very  ingenious  and  very  entertaining  in  thought, 
even  though  heavy  in  style.  Johnson's  Lives  of  the  Poets  is 
a  collection  of  unequal  value,  for  many  of  the  critical  state- 
ments in  the  various  lives  are  false,  though  many  others  are  the 
truest  ever  uttered,  and  most  of  them  are  nobly  said. 

Dr.  Johnson's  style  is  not  so  bad  as  it  is  generally  said  to  be, 
and  it  gradually  grew  less  big-worded.  He  was  over-languaged, 
.it  is  true,  but  he  regretted  it,  for  during  his  later  years  he  once 
said  of  Robertson,  the  historian,  "  If  his  style  is  bad,  that  is,  too 
big  words  and  too  many  of  them,  I  am  afraid  he  caught  it  of  me." 

Edmund  Burke.  —  The  richly  splendid,  sumptuous,  majestic 
writing  of  Edmund  Burke,  in  both  his  letters  and  speeches, 
really  constitutes  something  very  like  a  series  of  essays.  The 
speeches,  being  like  essays,  were  not  often  listened  to  atten- 
tively, and,  by  many  who  were  most  interested  in  what  he 
had  to  say,  not  listened  to  at  all.  Charles  James  Fox  tells 
how  members  of  the  House  of  Commons  would  rise  and  leave 
the  House  when  Burke  came  to  speak,  but  the  next  morning 
would  wear  to  shreds  the  printed  copies  of  his  speech,  so  keen 
were  they  to  grasp  the  significance  of  every  word  he  had  uttered. 
Burke,  paradoxically,  was  the  world's  greatest  orator,  but  a 
rather  poor  speaker. 


THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  167 

His  Inquiry  into  the  Nature  of  the  Sublime  and  the  Beautiful 
is  of  great  value.  It  is  one  of  the  very  earliest  studies  in  aes- 
thetics which  is  based  upon  psychological  thinking,  and  it  was 
the  germ  of  nearly  all  of  later  speculation  upon  the  principles 
of  art  criticism. 

Two  of  Burke's  pamphlets,  Observations  on  the  Present  State  of 
the  Nation  and  Thoughts  on  the  Causes  of  the  Present  Discontents, 
show  their  author  to  have  been  the  foremost  of  all  the  effective 
political  philosophers  of  that  day.  His  speeches  on  American 
Taxation  and  on  Conciliation  with  the  American  Colonies,  pub- 
lished in  1774,  were  of  more  than  transitory  interest,  not  to 
Americans  alone,  but  to  Englishmen  as  well,  for  many  English- 
men, in  spite  of  Dr.  Johnson's  answer,  Taxation  no  Tyranny, 
even  then  believed  that  the  revolt  of  the  American  colonies  was 
a  battle  for  English  freedom  everywhere,  and  many  still  believe 
that  without  that  revolt  there  would  not  now  be  in  the  world 
a  "great  English  Republic,"  the  United  States,  worthy  to  take 
large  part  in  the  building  of  man's  future.  But  Burke's  three 
greatest  works  were  published  between  1790  and  1797,  —  Reflec- 
tions on  the  Revolution  in  France,  Letter  to  a  Noble  Lord,  and  Let- 
ters on  a  Regicide  Peace.  To  Burke  in  these  papers,  there  was 
no  dawn  of  liberty  in  the  French  Revolution,  but  a  bloody 
sunset  of  the  nations  sinking  into  gloomy  twilight. 

Burke  was  a  man  of  most  rare  ability,  the  greatest  prose 
writer  of  the  end  of  the  century,  as  Swift  had  been  the  greatest 
of  its  beginning.  Perhaps  De  Quincey  comes  as  near  as  any  to 
inheriting  a  small  share  of  the  wondrously  balanced  and  vehe- 
ment and  picturesque  style  of  this  master.  Yet  Burke  was  a 
master  without  a  "  school,"  for  his  genius,  unlike  Addison's, 
was  greater  than  his  talent,  and,  as  we  have  already  said,  it  is 
only  the  second-rate  man  who  makes  a  school  of  writers.  Be- 
side him,  De  Quincey  is  weak.     Burke  was  the  greatest  of  true 


l68  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

rhetoricians.  The  tradition  that  Demosthenes  is  the  great- 
est breaks  down  in  comparison  with  Burke  when  one  really 
reads  them  both.  But  if  one  desires  to  secure  (as  he  can  secure 
it)  a  mastery  of  his  own  language,  he  will  be  greatly  aided  by 
studying  all  the  essayists  of  this  period,  and  not,  as  Franklin 
did,  Addison  alone.  Few,  perhaps  not  any,  great  writers  have 
written  essays  only,  unless  we  except  Montaigne ;  but  nearly 
all  the  English  essayists  of  the  Eighteenth  Century,  whom  we 
have  mentioned,  produced  at  least  great  essays. 

IV.  The  Novelists 

I.  Anticipations  of  the  Nwd 

Subject  matter  and  methods.  —  If  in  such  a  poet  as  Words- 
worth we  learn  the  glory  of  the  commonplace,  in  such  a  poet 
as  Milton  secure  a  vision  of  the  ideal,  and  in  the  essayists  find 
a  mastery  of  our  own  language,  it  is  in  the  pages  of  the  novelists 
that  we  gain  a  better  knowledge  of  human  nature.  It  is  said 
by  Professor  Saintsbury  that  the  three  chief  motives  which  con- 
trol human  conduct  are  **  love,  valor,  and  religion."  It  has 
also  been  pointed  out  that  in  the  stories  associated  with  the 
British  King  Arthur  we  have  illustration  of  this  fact;  that 
(i)  in  the  stories  connected  with  Arthur  and  the  Round  Table 
we  find  working  the  motive  of  valor,  (2)  in  the  stories  con- 
nected with  Lancelot  and  Guinevere  we  find  the  motive  of 
love,  and  (3)  in  the  stories  associated  with  the  search  for  the 
Holy  Grail  we  find  the  motive  of  religion  is  uppermost ;  so  that 
in  the  whole  cycle  of  stories  three  motives  are  combined.  The 
simplest  reflection  upon  the  motives  which  control  men  and 
women  in  fiction  shows  that  these  are  the  dominant  motives  in 
the  work  of  the  novelists.  One  of  these  motives,  or  a  combina- 
tion of  two  or  three  of  them,  will  set  a  man  or  a  woman  or  a  group 


THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  169 

of  them  upon  a  quest,  adventures  will  follow,  and  in  the  end 
there  is  achievement  of  the  purpose,  or  else  the  characters  come 
to  grief.  Such  is  the  formula  of  what  we  loosely  call  the  romantic 
novel.  Characters  revealing  themselves  chiefly  through  conver- 
sation or  through  what  is  said  about  them,  rather  than  person- 
ages attempting  and  achieving  or  failing  to  achieve  deeds,  "and 
living  in  more  commonplace  circumstances  than  do  the  ro- 
mance heroes,  —  such  is  the  formula  of  the  novel  commonly 
and  loosely  called  realistic. 

It  should  be  understood  by  the  student  that  no  such  thing  as 
exact  realism  is  possible  in  literature  or  in  any  other  way  of  re- 
producing experience.  This  is  true  for  three  reasons :  first,  no 
man  is  so  perfectly  equipped  in  his  organism  as  to  be  able  to  have 
experience  of  things  as  they  are  externally,  without  modification 
by  his  own  mental  states ;  second,  no  man's  language  is  a  per- 
fect medium  for  conveying  to  another  even  what  he  has  really 
experienced;  and,  third,  no  one  to  whom  this  modified  experi- 
ence is  conveyed  by  means  of  language  is  so  adapted  to  the 
make-up  of  the  writer  that  he  can  have  within  his  mind  the 
experience  which  the  writer  attempts  to  convey  to  him.  Hence 
by  the  time  the  reading  is  done,  the  experience  is  at  least  three 
removes  from  reality  itself.  And  yet  some  men  have  been  so 
finely  equipped  to  see,  and  so  highly  endowed  to  understand,  and 
so  superbly  trained  to  express  what  they  have  seen  and  under- 
stood, that  we  are  willing,  because  of  the  close  likeness  to  life 
which  we  observe  in  their  books,  to  deceive  ourselves  into  ac- 
cepting their  pictures  of  what  has  occurred  as  if  they  were  "  the 
real  thing." 

Beginning  of  the  novel.  —  The  true  "  novel  "  did  not  exist 
until  about  1740,  but  it  had  many  anticipations.  M.  Jules 
Jusserand,  French  ambassador  to  the  United  States,  has 
written  a  volume  entitled   The   Novel  in  the  Time  of  Shake- 


lyo  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

speare,  but  it  is  difficult  for  us  to  accept  Sidney's  Arcadia^  Lyly's 
Euphues,  and  some  rogue  stories  by  Nash  and  others  as  very 
like  what  we  know  in  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  and  twen- 
tieth centuries  as  the  novel. 

Shakespeare  himself  had  more  to  do  with  the  ancestry  of  the 
novel  than  did  his  contemporaries,  though  Ben  Jonson  was  not 
far  behind  him  in  this.  Shakespeare's  insistence  upon  man's 
own  character  as  responsible  for  his  deeds,  that  "  character  is 
destiny,"  resulted  in  deep  interest  in  the  individual  and  in  what 
actions  flow  from  him  and  what  motives  are  the  sources  of  these 
individual  actions.  Ben  Jonson's  isolation  of  a  character,  too, 
for  description  in  full  within  his  plays,  had  a  similar  effect  of 
concentrating  attention  upon  character  for  its  own  sake.  Then 
followed  strong  interest  in  men's  lives,  biographies,  autobiog- 
raphies in  the  form  of  "  Memoirs  "  chiefly,  and,  finally,  the 
*'  Character  "  of  the  seventeenth  century  in  the  writings  of 
John  Earle  and  Sir  Thomas  Overbury  and  others,  —  the 
interest  having  passed  now  from  Shakespeare's  individual  char- 
acter to  that  of  a  type.  In  the  periodical  essays,  next,  came  the 
treatment  of  typical  characters,  what  they  were,  how  they 
were  affected  by  society  about  them,  and  what  they  did.  If 
the  de  Coverley  papers  should  be  detached  from  their  essay  set- 
ting and  published  in  the  continuous  form  of  the  novel,  they 
would  affect  the  reader  as  a  rather  tame  form  of  "  novel  of 
manners  "  affects  him. 

But  Bunyan,  Defoe,  and  Swift  are  the  actual  progenitors  of 
the  Enghsh  novel  as  we  understand  it  to-day.  Bunyan's  Pil- 
grini's  Progress,  Defoe's  Robinson  Crusoe,  Memoirs  of  a  Cavalier, 
and  Journal  of  the  Plague  Year,  and  Swift's  Gulliver^s  Travels, 
are  the  books  which,  in  themselves  much  superior  to  many 
things  which  pass  for  novels,  brought  to  birth  the  work  of 
Samuel  Richardson  and  of  Henry  Fielding. 


THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  171 

Classification  of  the  novel.  —  A  generous  classification  of 
novels  according  to  method  would  place  them  under  two 
headings:  (i)  autobiographical,  and  (2)  biographical,  or  "that 
in  which  an  invisible  narrator  tells  a  story  in  which  some  one 
else  whose  character  he  lays  bare  for  us  is  the  hero."  Then 
there  is  the  "  historical  novel,"  which  may  follow  the  method 
of  either  of  the  other  two,  but  tries  to  mingle  with  the  adven- 
tures of  an  imaginary  person-  or  group  of  persons  the  life  of 
actual  historical  personages. 

All  three  of  the  men  mentioned  above,  Bunyan,  Defoe,  and 
^  Swift,  wrote  in  the  autobiographical  form  (though  not  always 
in  the  first  person) ,  as  we  might  expect,  because  of  the  interest 
in  the  individual  which  had  already  been  aroused,  —  and  who 
would  be  supposed  to  know  the  individual  so  well  as  he  himself  ? 
They  were  undertaking  to  make  fiction  important  by  making 
it  seem  truth,  and  the  narration  of  what  claimed  to  be  auto- 
biographical would  be  likely  to  seem  true.  The  only  one  of  the 
three  in  whom  the  cynicism  of  the  teller  of  rogue  stories  and  the 
extravagance  of  the  medieval  romances  survived  was  Swift, 
but  his  work  was  a  satire,  and  no  satire  ever  claims  to  be  literal 
truth  or  even  a  literal  picture  of  it  in  its  facts,  but  truth  only  in 
meaning.  We  have  already  spoken  of  the  bringing  of  unity  into 
fiction  by  John  Bunyan.  It  now  remains  to  say  that  he  gave 
reasonableness  to  his  story  by  the  simple  and  artistic  use  of 
minute  detail  drawn  from  the  familiar  incidents  and  scenes  of 
English  life  and  woven  into  the  texture  of  the  main  imaginative 
current  of  the  tale,  "^hat  he  wrote  has  seemed  not  real  but 
as  if  real  to  countless  readers  the  world  over. 

Daniel  Defoe.  —  Defoe  was  a  great  genius,  though  unfor- 
tunately in  many  ways  a  pretty  poor  sort  of  man,  because  there 
was  so  much  of  thorough  dishonesty  in  his  life.  But  his  work 
in  fiction  has  in  one  respect  never  been  surpassed,  namely,  in 


172  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

the  manner  in  which  he  makes  us  acquainted,  in  Robinson 
Crusoe,  with  the  details  of  the  experience  of  his  characters.  In 
no  other  book,  except  in  some  of  those  of  Jane  Austen,  is  there 
such  a  scrupulous  and  faithful  presentation  to  the  reader  of 
facts  as  the  personage  in  this  novel  is  said  to  experience  them. 
We  learn  of  the  island,  and  all  things  upon  it,  just  as  Crusoe 
learned  of  it,  and  all  is,  we  are  convinced,  as  it  would  have  been 
if  a  shipwrecked  man  had  actually  been  there.  The  book 
seemed  all  the  more  real  to  readers  in  Defoe's  time,  for  Crusoe 
had  been  the  name  of  an  actual  schoolfellow  of  the  author,  and 
a  man  named  Selkirk,  or  Selcraig,  had  actually  been  left  upon 
the  shore  of  the  island  of  Juan  Fernandez  in  some  such  way  as 
Defoe  describes.  And  then  the  book  was  most  important,  too, 
for  the  Englishman,  because  he  took  the  whole  story  as  a  sort 
of  symbol  of  his  life,  with  its  struggles,  successful  and  failing, 
and  with  the  Englishman's  strong  faith  at  last  in  the  coming 
out  right  of  all  things  in  the  hands  of  a  just  Power  who  repaid 
patience,  industry,  and  honesty  with  high  reward. 

The  Memoirs  of  a  Cavalier  and  the  Journal  of  the  Plague  Year 
were  historical  fiction,  the  first  so  much  so  that  illustrious  persons 
after  its  publication  thought  it  was  a  record  of  genuine  facts 
written  between  1632  and  1648  by  one  who  was  engaged  in  the 
affairs  recorded,  and  the  second  so  much  so  that  reputable  his- 
torians have  quoted  it  as  documentary,  and  many  libraries  even 
yet  catalogue  it  among  the  histories  instead  of  under  fiction. 
The  so-called  *'  naturalists  "  in  nineteenth-century  France  have 
never  excelled  Defoe  in  the  Plague  Year  and  in  another  novel 
called  Moll  Flanders.  The  last-named  book  is  very  coarse, 
but  it  could  not  have  been  a  picture  of  the  times  if  it  had  not 
been  coarse.  Defoe  was  the  author  of  at  least  two  hundred  and 
fifty-four  separate  and  distinct  publications,  but  those  men- 
tioned above  are  the  best  representatives  of  his  works. 


THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  173 

Jonathan  Swift.  —  SwiiVs  Gulliver^ s  Travels  was  a  savage  piece 
of  irony  directed  at  his  king,  "  his  own  dear  country,"  and 
"  the  animal  called  man."  Swift  wrote  during  part  of  the  reign 
of  William  III  on  through  the  reigns  of  Queen  Anne  and  George 
I  into  that  of  George  11.  It  has  been  said  of  him  that  he  "  is 
the  typical  instance  of  the  powerlessness  of  pure  intellect  to 
secure  any  but  intellectual  triumphs  "  ;  but  how  any  one  can 
read  Swift  and  not  recognize  that  his  intellect  is  working  always 
under  the  stress  of  the  most  powerful  emotions,  is  difficult  to 
conceive.  No  man  ever  tortured  his  own  spirit  more  than 
did  Swift,  and  he  finally  died  insane.  While  the  adventures 
portrayed  in  Gulliver  are  fascinating  in  the  extreme,  yet  it  is  not 
possible  for  us  to  think  of  them  as  intended  utterly  to  humiHate 
man  without  our  feeling  that  when  they  were  written,  the  author 
was  near  the  insanity  which  afflicted  his  last  days.  But  Swift 
was  a  genius  of  the  highest  order.  He  went  farther  into  the 
"  insufficiency  of  mankind  "  than  has  any  other  man.  He 
was  endowed  with  an  almost  towering  common  sense,  and  he 
wrote  such  bitterly  effective  English  prose  as  no  man  before 
him  had  ever  penned.  With  all  this,  Swift  was  not  a  great 
philosopher;  even  the  speculations  in  the  third  section  of 
Gulliver's  Travels  were  thought  out  largely  with  the  help  of 
Doctor  Arbuthnot,  the  physician  who  was  one  of  the  small 
number  of  human  beings  for  whom  Swift  had  any  respect.  And, 
further,  Swift  was  so  inhuman  in  his  attitude  to  human  life  that 
his  satire  "  quivers  and  reddens  with  anger  in  every  line."  The 
story  of  Gulliver  as  mere  story  is  for  children;  but  its  bitter 
irony  directed  against  human  odiousness  and  Httleness  is  evi- 
dent to  the  thoughtful  student.  If  one  should  seek  extremes 
in  satire,  he  would  need  only  compare  and  contrast  Chaucer 
and  Swift. 

Swift    was    one   of    the    most    original    of    writers.     The 


174  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

place  of  Gtdliver^s  Travels  in  the  history  of  the  novel  is  rather 
indirect,  because  it  consists  primarily  in  the  fact  that  it  was 
the  wonderful  unusualness  of  the  content  of  the  book  which 
made  it  a  popular  success.  It  stimulated  to  originality  the  work 
of  other  writers,  though  the  travel  and  adventure  and  autobio- 
graphical features  of  it  had  already  become  established  in  the 
course  of  the  development  of  novel  writing. 

Goldsmith  and  Johnson.  —  Oliver  Goldsmith  and  Doctor 
Johnson  should  be  mentioned  here:  Goldsmith  for  his  Vicar 
of  Wakefield,  Johnson  for  his  Rasselas,  a  Prince  of  Abyssinia. 
They  should  be  spoken  of  in  this  connection  because  they  faith- 
fully tried  to  be  novelists.  The  Vicar  of  Wakefield  was  written 
sometime  between  1762  and  1766,  and  therefore  after  Richard- 
son and  Fielding  had  scored  their  great  successes.  And  yet 
the  book  is  a  kind  of  combination  of  essay,  oration,  sermon, 
poem,  and  novelette.  Goldsmith  could  not  help  being  a  poet, 
even  when  he  tried  to  write  a  prose  story.  Goethe  said  of  the 
charming  optimism  of  Goldsmith,  that  it  is  that  view  of 
and  attitude  to  life  "which  in  the  end  leads  us  back  from 
all  the  mistaken  paths  of  life."  Johnson  would  never  have 
thought  of  saying  what  he  wanted  to  say  within  the  frame- 
work of  a  novel  if  it  had  not  been  that  the  public,  fed 
upon  Fielding  and  Richardson,  were  clamoring  for  food 
in  that  form  only.  It  may  be  that  the  fact  that  Johnson 
wrote  Rasselas  in  order  to  pay  the  expenses  of  his  mother's 
funeral  explains  in  part  its  melancholy  tone.  The  book  is 
a  plaintive  and  adverse  judgment  upon  many  circumstances 
and  ideals  of  human  life.  Yet  it  is  wholesome  and  wise  in  its 
moral  reflections.  It  is  not  very  exciting  in  its  story.  But  it 
was  popular  and  ran  through  seven  or  eight  reprints  during  its 
author's  lifetime.  It  is  looked  upon  as  one  of  the  minor  classics 
of  our  language. 


THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  175 


2.    The  Real  Novel 


The  lack  of  the  ability  of  the  playwrights  of  the  first  half 
of  the  eighteenth  century  to  continue  to  entertain  the  pub- 
lic "  led  to  the  craving  on  the  part  of  English  readers  for 
an  amusement  which  should  be  to  them  what  the  seeing  of 
comedies  had  been  to  their  parents,  and  of  tragedies  to 
their  grandparents."  This  amusement  and  a  great  deal 
more  than  mere  amusement  was  furnished  English  readers 
by  the  four  great  novelists,  Richardson,  Fielding,  Smollett,  and 
Sterne. 

Samuel  Richardson.  —  Samuel  Richardson's  three  novels 
were  Pamela^  Clarissa  Harlowe,  and  ^^V  '  Charles  Grandison. 
All  are  slow  reading  for  a  busy  person  of  to-day;  the  best 
of  the  three  is  Clarissa  Harlowe,  which  was  published  in  seven 
volumes.  But  they  are  important,  for  they  marked  the  definite 
beginning  of  "  the  most  entertaining  and  the  most  versatile  " 
of  all  the  types  of  modern  literature.  The  novel  is  the  most 
read  of  all  the  forms  of  literature,  and  in  importance  it  at  least 
rivals  the  drama.  The  first  of  the  three  novels  by  Richardson 
took  its  name  from  its  chief  character,  Pamela,  a  servant  girl. 
The  book  was  in  the  form  of  letters  addressed  by  this  young 
and  sensible  servant  girl  to  her  parents.  It  was  intended  as  a 
sort  of  compendium  to  aid  people,  especially  the  rather  ilHter- 
ate,  in  their  correspondence,  and  at  the  same  time  to  be  a  moral 
guide.  Clara  Reeve,  a  clever  story-writer,  said  in  her  Progress 
of  Romance,  published  in  1785,  that  "  The  Novel  gives  a  familiar 
relation  of  such  things  as  pass  every  day  before  our  eyes,  such 
as  may  happen  to  our  friend  or  to  ourselves ;  and  the  perfection 
of  it  is  to  represent  every  scene  in  so  easy  and  natural  a  manner 
and  to  make  them  appear  so  probable  as  to  deceive  us  into  a 
persuasion  (at  least  while  we  are  reading)   that  all  is  real, 


176  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

until  we  are  affected  by  the  joys  or  distresses  of  the  persons 
in  the  story  as  if  they  were  our  own."  This  is  not  a  descrip- 
tion of  all  novels,  but  it  is  a  good  one  of  Pamela  and  the  rest 
of  Richardson's.  In  Pamela  the  author  attacks  conventional 
notions  of  dignity,  even  in  his  choice  of  a  title,  and  for  his  mate- 
rial he  goes  straight  to  the  heart  of  common  folk  in  the  ordinary 
circumstances  of  life.  The  letter  form,  however,  while  the  most 
common,  is  the  least  likely  to  be  the  form  in  which  people  in 
actual  life  would  reveal  such  a  story. 

Richardson's  novels  are  all  studies  in  normal  life,  yet  they 
are  psychological  analyses  of  it  to  its  very  roots.  For  this  rea-. 
son  many  continental  critics,  especially  the  French,  have  pro- 
nounced the  author  of  Clarissa  Harlowe  to  be  the  best  of  all 
novelists,  and  one  of  these  critics,  Diderot,  even  ranked  Rich- 
ardson with  Homer  and  Euripides  as  an  extraordinary  genius. 
This  is  too  high  praise ;  yet  for  minute  and  accurate  observation 
of  common  life,  Richardson  has  never  been  surpassed.  Strange 
to  say,  the  psychological  novel,  such  as  Richardson's,  while  con- 
sidered by  foremost  critics  to  be  the  most  important  of  all  kinds, 
has  rarely  been  popular.  What  gave  those  of  Richardson  pop- 
ularity in  their  day  was  their  newness  and  their  absolute  faith- 
fulness to  the  very  hour  in  which  the  readers  lived.  Here  was 
held  up  to  man's  (or,  chiefly,  woman's)  nature,  for  the  first  time 
a  mirror  that  reflected  that  life  with  closest  accuracy. 

Henry  Fielding.  —  Had  Henry  Fielding  waited  until  after 
the  publication  of  Richardson's  Clarissa  Harlowe,  it  may  be  that 
he  would  never  have  entered  the  field  of  novel  writing,  for  the 
success  of  that  book  was  so  phenomenal  that  he  would  hardly  have 
dared  ridicule  its  author  as  he  ventured  to  do  in  The  History 
of  Joseph  Andrews.  Fielding  said  that  he  wrote  this  book  in 
imitation  of  the  manner  of  Cervantes,  and  he  called  it  a  comic 
epic  poem  in  prose.    The  book  was  intended  as  a  burlesque, 


THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  177 

just  as  Don  Quixote,  by  the  Spaniard,  Cervaates,  had  been  so 
intended.  Richardson  had  not  been  able  to  free  himself  entirely 
from  the  conventional  prejudices  of  his  time  and  so  had  re- 
warded Pamela  for  her  virtue  by  marrying  her,  in  the  end,  to 
the  Squire,  even  though  the  Squire  was  a  rascal.  This  was  too 
much  for  the  bold  and  free-minded  Fielding  to  find  in  a  book 
claiming  to  advance  morals,  and  he  therefore  set  out  to  write 
up  the  adventures  of  Joseph  Andrews,  Pamela's  brother,  as  a 
burlesque  upon  her  adventures.  But  Joseph  Andrews  turned 
out  to  be  more  than  a  jest  upon  another  author's  weakness. 
It  became  a  satire  upon  foolish  society,  and  in  addition  it  created 
a  Christian  gentleman  and  scholar  in  Parson  Adams  whom  no 
ridiculing  can  cause  us  to  fail  to  respect  and  admire. 

The  chief  one  of  Fielding's  works  is  The  History  of  Tom  Jones, 
a  Foundling,  published  in  February  of  1749.  This  is  a  great 
book,  because  of  the  largeness  of  its  design,  because  it  is  a  pic- 
ture of  man's  life,  and  because  the  picture  shows  both  the  right 
way  and  the  wrong  way  of  living  that  life.  Tom  Jones,  Blifil, 
Squire  Western,  his  daughter  Sophia,  and  the  pedantic  peda- 
gogues Square  and  Thwackum  are  characters  drawn  exactly 
to  the  lines  of  life.  In  both  the  adventures  and  the  talk 
of  some  of  these  characters  there  is  a  good  deal  that  is 
coarse,  but  as  in  the  case  of  Defoe's  Moll  Flanders,  the  book 
would  not  have  been  a  faithful  picture  of  its  day  if  it  had  not  con- 
tained coarseness,  and  the  sound  thing  about  it  is  that  Fielding 
never  glosses  over  the  coarseness  and  evil  which  he  depicts,  — 
he  never  fails  to  let  us  know  what  his  judgment  is  concerning 
evil,  or  to  give  us  sufficient  data  to  make  a  solidly  based  judg- 
ment for  ourselves.  Mid-eighteenth  century  life  in  England  is, 
in  this  book,  painted  from  life,  and  the  social  historian  never 
fails  to  pay  his  tribute  to  its  writer  for  the  life-likeness  of  the  por- 
trayal.    Tom  Jones  is  not  far  from  being  the  world's  greatest 

N 


178  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

novel.  Perhaps  it  is  the  greatest,  though  Walter  Pater  gives 
the  palm  to  Thackeray's  Henry  Esmond. 

In  Amelia^  Fielding's  third  novel,  excellence  in  woman  is 
what  the  author  sought  to  depict.  Patient  and  saintly  is 
the  woman  whom  he  describes,  and  the  book  is  full  of  shadows. 
Yet  it  is  humorous,  too,  though  with  the  sort  of  humor  that 
leads  to  thought  and  to  an  "  undersmile  "  only,  rather  than  to 
laughter.  Fielding  wrote  other  books,  but  these  three  are  the 
excellent  ones.  He  had  been  a  dramatist  before  he  became  a 
novelist.  From  his  dramatic  failures  he  had  learned  this  much : 
how  to  corpbine  men  and  women  in  circumstances  that 
would  reveal  their  characters,  and  how  to  adjust  minor  crises 
to  one  another  in  the  development  of  a  greater  and  inclusive 
crisis  in  their  lives.  But  the  novelist  had  yet  to  learn 
that  the  fatal  "  average  reader  '*  resents  episodes  or  turnings 
aside  from  the  main  current  of  the  story.  Even  Tom  Jones 
suffers  from  this,  great  as  the  book  is  in  all  other  respects. 
Fielding  called  himself  "  an  historian  of  human  nature." 

Tobias  Smollett.  —  The  three  successful  books  of  Tobias 
Smollett  were  The  Adventures  of  Roderick  Random,  The  Ad- 
ventures of  Peregrine  Pickle,  and  the  Expedition  of  Humphrey 
Clinker.  In  the  first  two  there  are  many  good  things,  in  the 
third  some  great  things.  In  all  three  are  many  amusing 
things.  Roderick  Random  is  the  first  English  novel  of  the 
sea,  but  the  American  Cooper  was  yet  to  teach  the  English 
novelists  many  things  in  connection  with  the  sea.  Throughout 
all  three  of  the  books  there  are"  tyf)ical  sea-  and  lands-men,  most 
of  them  caricatures  rather  than  characters,  however.  A  Scotch 
schoolmaster  advertises  that  he  can  teach  Englishmen  how  to 
pronounce  correctly  the  English  languageJ  We  owe  to  Smol- 
lett the  first  novel  of  the  sea,  the  first  national  types,  and  many 
of  the  mechanical  contrivances  of  horror  that  later  distinguished 


THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY        •   179 

the  work  of  the  "  school  of  terror  "  in  romance.  Humphrey 
Clinker  is  the  best  of  the  books  by  this  author.  It  is  comic, 
but  it  also  is  philosophic.  It  has  within  it  few  of  the  things 
that  make  many  of  the  pages  of  Smollett's  other  books  dis- 
agreeable to  many  present-day  readers. 

Laurence  Sterne.  —  Laurence  Sterne,  a  man  richly  playful 
in  his  wit,  wrote  The  Life  and  Opinions  of  Tristram  Shandy, 
Gent.,  and  A  Sentimental  Journey  through  France  and  Italy. 
Like  Shakespeare,  Sterne  had  a  most  original  faculty  for  helping 
himself  to  anything  he  could  find  in  others'  books  that  would 
serve  his  purposes.  It  was  from  the  old  French  and  English 
humorists  and  from  the  Queen  Anne  wits,  especially  Dean 
Swift,  that  many  of  his  witticisms  were  "  lifted,"  but  they  were 
all  put  to  good  use  and  made  his  own  witticisms,  for,  as  Lowell 
has  written,  ''  'Tis  his  at  last  who  says  it  best."  Both  Smollett 
and  Sterne,  as  well  as  Fielding,  were  much  indebted  to  Cervantes 
for  their  kindly  satiric  view  of  life,  though  Smollett  degenerated 
at  times  into  odious  vileness.  Sterne's  works  are  formless. 
But  he  did  not  intend  in  them  to  tell  plot-stories,  but  only  to  re- 
cord the  author's  views  and  opinions.  He  has  created  immortal 
characters,  of  whom  Uncle  Toby  is  the  chief.  He  has  also 
written  some  sentences  that  might  be  thought  to  have  come 
from  greater  sources.  "  God  tempers  the  wind  to  the  shorn 
lamb,"  for  example,  is  not  from  the  Bible,  but  from  Laurence 
Sterne. 

The  Sentimental  Journey  zigzagged  through  much  of  the  re- 
volt of  the  emotions  against  the  coldly  severe  moral  and  in- 
tellectual tendencies  of  the  age,  as  well  as  through  France  and 
Italy.  Fortunately,  to  keep  him  from  being  "  thought  "  by 
some  unthinking  person  to  be  a  mere  imitator  of  Rousseau, 
Sterne  zigzags  through  a  great  deal  of  the  highly  ludicrous  also. 
Seventeen  hundred  and  sixty-eight  was  the  year  of  the  Senti- 


l8o  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

mental  Journeys  publication.  Only  a  few  years  before  this 
Jean  Jacques  Rousseau  published  the  book  in  which  he  had 
said,  "The  Heart  is  good ;  listen  to  it;  suffer  yourself  to  be  led 
by  Sensibility  and  you  will  never  stray,  or  your  strayings 
will  be  of  a  creditable  sort."  This  is  right  enough  so  far  as  it 
goes,  but  it  led  Rousseau  into  sentimental  whining,  while  Sterne 
never  made  such  doctrine  the  ground  for  self-pity.  To  hoax 
and  to  uncover  absurdities  was  his  purpose,  even  when  he 
dwelt  upon  real  distress.  Incidentally,  it  should  be  said  that 
a  chapter  or  two  in  this  second  book  of  Sterne's  cannot  be  ex- 
celled in  any  comparison  with  other  pages  of  excellent  prose. 

The  school  of  terror.  —  Of  Horace  Walpole's  Castle  oj  Otranto, 
William  Beckford's  History  of  the  Caliph  Vathek,  Matthew 
Gregory  Lewis's  Monk,  and  Mrs.  Anne  Radcliffe's  Mysteries 
of  Udolpho,  we  need  only  say  here  that  they  were  founda- 
tion stones  for  the  rather  hideous  pseudo-supernatural  struc- 
ture known  as  the  "  school  of  terror."  The  first  of  these 
books  was  printed  in  1764  and  the  last  in  1794;  the  other 
two,  between  these  dates.  These  works  were  early  called 
gothic,  in  the  somewhat  distorted  sense  of  grotesque  and  bar- 
barous. Into  this  grotesquely  barbarous  work  came  elements 
of  the  pseudo-supernatural  and  of  the  eighteenth-century  Ger- 
man handling  of  the  medieval ;  but  it  takes  a  twentieth-century 
reader's  hardest  endeavors  to  induce  an  attitude  of  anything 
else  than  amusement  at  what  the  late  years  of  the  eighteenth 
century  and  the  early  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  shuddered 
at  as  unspeakably  terrible. 

Frances  Burney  and  Maria  Edge  worth.  —  Frances  Burney 
was  greatly  praised  by  her  contemporaries,  including  even  Doc- 
tor Johnson.  She  was  the  first  of  writers  to  show  that  in  the 
art  of  novel  writing  women  have  a  place  established  beyond  cavil. 
Frances  Burney,  Maria  Edgeworth,   Jane   Austen,   Charlotte 


THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  l8l 

Bronte,  George  Eliot,  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Gaskell,  May  Sinclair,  — 
it  is  a  renowned  list.  Frances  Burney's  best-known  novel  is 
Evelina..  Maria  Edgeworth's  Castle  Rackrenl,  printed  in  1800, 
is  packed  with  unpremeditated  humor.  Miss  Edgeworth  is 
the  creator  of  the  international  novel,  made  so  famous  to-day 
by  Henry  James.  Irish  character  is  perfectly  delineated  in  her 
work.  Sir  Walter  Scott  thought  her  wonderful.  She  will  be 
mentioned  again,  for  she  made  straight  the  way  for  the  almost 
omniscient  and  errorless  Jane  Austen. 

V.   Philosophers  and  Historians 

The  philosophers  in  Great  Britain  during  this  century  were 
the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury,  Bishop  Berkeley,  Bishop  Butler,  and 
David  Hume.  The  historians  were  William  Robertson  and 
Edward  Gibbon.  Hume  was  a  historian  as  well  as  a  philosopher. 
Edmund  Burke  and  Adam  Smith  might  well  be  called  political 
philosophers. 

Philosophy.  —  Shaftesbury's  name  is  always  associated  with 
the  philosophy  of  optimism.  He  had  much  effect  upon  Alex- 
ander Pope.  Shaftesbury  reasoned  about  beauty  in  the  arts, 
and  tried  to  harmonize  the  beautiful,  the  good,  and  the  true. 
He  was  less  psychological  than  Burke  in  reasoning  about  the 
beautiful,  but  his  theories  still  survive  in  the  thinking  of  those 
who  are  interested  in  the  arts.  Bishop  Berkeley  questioned  the 
real  existence  of  matter  in  quite  a  Platonic  fashion,  and  has 
been  the  inspirer  of  numberless  thinner  thinkers  in  the  same 
fashion.  Butler,  in  his  Analogy  of  Religion,  Natural  and  Re- 
vealed, to  the  Constitution  and  Course  of  Nature,  attempted  to 
harmonize  authority  and  reason.  His  book  is  still  used  as  a 
textbook  in  a  college  here  and  there.  Henry  Drummond  in  the 
nineteenth  century  was  stimulated  by  him  to  write  a  very  popu- 


l82  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

lar  book  entitled  Natural  Law  in  the  Spiritual  World.  David 
Hume's  Treatise  oj  Human  Nature  limited  all  our  knowledge  to 
the  phenomena  revealed  to  us  by  experience.  His  book  was 
later  published  under  the  title  of  Concerning  the  Human  Un- 
derstanding. Burke's  political  philosophy  was  revealed  in  the 
speeches  and  letters  we  have  discussed  in  connection  with  the 
essayists  of  this  century.  ^ 

Adam  Smith's  greatest  work  was  the  Wealth  of  Nations,  pub- 
lished in  1776.  It  has  been  affirmed  that  if  this  book  had  been 
written  ten  years  earlier,  the  American  Revolution  would  not 
have  occurred.  In  it  Smith  maintained  that  labor  is  the  source 
of  wealth,  and  that  the  laborer  should  be  given  complete  free- 
dom to  pursue  his  own  interests  in  his  own  way.  All  laws,  he 
claimed,  to  restrict  the  freedom  of  the  laborer  are  stumbling- 
blocks  in  the  path  of  the  increasing  wealth  of  a  nation.  Adam 
Smith  was  the  founder  of  the  science  of  political  economy,  and 
also  the  first  strongly  and  intelligently  to  set  forth  the  theory 
of  free  trade. 

History.  —  David  Hume's  History  of  Great  Britain  was  written 
in  polished  and  noble  style,  and  was  so  interesting  that  it  was  read 
as  eagerly  as  if  it  were  a  novel.  He  was  not  an  accurate  historian, 
but  his  work  is  of  great  value  because  his  philosophical  reflec- 
tions are  uttered  in  such  a  way  as  to  be  easily  understood  by  the 
general  reader.  William  Robertson  wrote  a  History  of  the  Reign 
of  Charles  V.  Robertson  was  most  graceful  in  style,  and  greatly 
influenced  Carlyle,  —  not  in  style,  but  in  historical  research. 
But  the  inimitably  great  historian  was  Edward  Gibbon.  Gib- 
bon's Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  is  not  far  short  of 
being  the  most  famous  historical  work  ever  written.  Certainly  it 
is  the  most  eminent  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Professor  Free- 
man, himself  a  prominent  historian,  has  said  of  Gibbon,  "  He 
remains   the  one  historian  of   the  eighteenth  century  whom 


THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  183 

modem  research  has  neither  set  aside  nor  threatened  to  set 
aside."  He  was  scholarly,  unprejudiced,  —  and  interesting. 
"  Whatever  else  is  read,  Gibbon  must  be  read  too."  And  he 
will  always  be  read,  both  for  his  facts  and  his  interpretations 
of  facts,  and  for  his  richly  colored  and  splendidly  forceful  style. 

James  Boswell,  as  the  historian  of  one  man,  ought  here  to  be 
mentioned.  He  wrote  a  Life  of  Samuel  Johnson,  LL.D.  It  is 
the  general  custom  to  speak  lightly  of  Boswell,  but,  strangely 
enough,  the  detractor  is  quite  likely  to  say,  and  say  truly, 
that  his  book  is  one  of  the  best  among  a  dozen  or  less  of  the 
greatest  books  in  the  world.  It  is  a  very  wonderful  biogra- 
phy of  a  most  remarkable  man. 

Perhaps  Defoe  might  be  mentioned  as  a  comic  historian; 
The  Political  History  of  the  Devil  is  his  book  in  this  field. 
Current  history  met  a  satirist  in  this  book,  at  least. 

The  eighteenth  century  in  America.  —  In  eighteenth-century 
Aijierica,  makers  of  history  were  doing  some  important 
writing  in  the  English  language.  In  that  century  we  find 
Benjamin  Franklin's  Autobiography ;  the  state  papers  of  George 
Washington;  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  written  chiefly 
by  Thomas  Jefferson ;  the  papers  of  Alexander  Hamilton  and 
James  Madison  in  the  Federalist;  and  Thomas  Paine's  Rights 
of  Man,  written  in  reply  to  Burke's  Reflections  on  the  French 
Revolution.  Also  there  were  the  writings  of  Jonathan  Edwards, 
particularly  his  Freedom  of  the  Will.  This  book  has  given 
Edwards  the  reputation  of  having  been  a  great  meta- 
physician. Europeans  are  divided  as  to  our  greatest 
thinker,  opinion  running  between  Hamilton  and  Edwards. 
Very  much  more  attention  than  this  should  be  given  by 
the  student  to  these  American  writers,  but  it  is  the  chief  purpose 
of  this  book  to  present  the  work  of  writers  in  Great 
Britain. 


l84  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

QUESTIONS  AND   TOPICS  FOR  DISCUSSION 

1.  What  were  the  leading  features  of  eighteenth-century  life  and  thought? 

2.  Its  principal  authors  may  be  grouped  under  what  heads? 

3.  Into  how  many  periods  may  the  poetry  of  the  eighteenth  century 
be  divided,  and  who  do  you  think  was  the  chief  poet  in  each  period? 

4.  What  place  does  Pope  hold  among  English  poets? 

5.  Learn  one  poem  by  Thomas  Gray  or  one  by  William  Collins,  and 
recite  it. 

6.  What  is  "  romance " ?    What  does  "  romantic "  mean? 

7.  Learn  one  poem  by  Robert  Bums  or  one  by  William  Blake,  and 
recite  it. 

8.  Find  out  all  you  can  about  the  Lyrical  Ballads  published  jointly  by 
Coleridge  and  Wordsworth. 

9.  Who  were  the  foremost  English  dramatists  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, and  what  plays  of  that  time  are  often  staged  to-day? 

10.  What  essay  which  you  have  read  of  those  written  during  the  eight- 
eenth century  do  you  like  best,  and  why? 

11.  Describe  the  work  of  Swift ;  of  Dr.  Johnson;  of  Edmund  Burke. 

12.  What  is  the  business  of  the  novel?     When  did  it  first  begin  to  ap- 
pear as  a  great  type  of  literature? 

13.  Characterize  Goldsmith,  Swift,  Defoe,  Richardson,  and  Fielding. 

14.  What  do  you  know  of  the  work  of  Gibbon,  of  Hume,  and  of  Adam 
Smith? 

15.  Tell  all  you  can  concerning  the  literature  which  was  being  produced 
in  America  during  the  eighteenth  century. 

READING  LIST  FOR  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 
POETRY 

Pope,  The  Rape  of  the  Lock,  and  Essay  on  Man.     In  Selec^ 

tions  from  'Pope,  edited  by  Edward  Bliss  Reed. 
Gray,  Elegy  in  a  Country  Churchyard.     In  Gray's  Poems, 

edited  by  John  Bradshaw. 
William  Collins,    Ode  to  Evening.     In  The  Poems  of  Collins,  edited  by 

Christopher  Stone. 
William  Cowper,    The  Diverting  History  of  John  Gilpin.     In  Cou'Per's 

Shorter  Poems,  edited  by  W.  T.  Webb. 


THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 


I8S 


Burns, 

William  Blake, 
Coleridge, 

Wordsworth, 


Goldsmith, 
Sheridan, 


Addison, 

Swift, 

Johnson, 

Burke, 


BUNYAN, 

Defoe, 
Swift, 
Goldsmith, 

Richardson, 
Fielding, 


Adam  Smith, 
Gibbon, 


The    Cotter's   Saturday   Night.    In   Selections  from 

Burns,  edited  by  Lois  G.  Hufford. 
The  Tiger.     In  Lyrical  Poems  of  Blake,  edited  by  John 

Sampson. 
The  Rime  of  the  Ancient  Mariner.     In  Christabel  and 

Other  Poems,  edited  by  Hannaford  Bennett.     (See 
next  period.) 
Lines  composed  above  Tintern  Abbey.     In  Selected 

Poems,  edited  by  Clara  L.  Thomson.     (See  next 
period.) 

DRAMA 

She  Stoops  to  Conquer.     Edited  by  J.  M.  Dent. 
The  Rivals.     Edited  by  Edmund  Gosse. 

ESSAY 

Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  Papers.     Edited  by  Zelma  Gray. 

The  Tale  of  a  Tub.     "Everyman's  Library." 

The  Advantages  of  Living  in  a   Garret.     In  Little 

Masterpieces,  edited  by  Bhss  Perry. 
Conciliation  with  the  American  Colonies.    Edited  by 

Thomas  Arkle  Clark. 

NOVEL 

The  Pilgrim's  Progress.    Winston's  "  Illustrated  Handy 

Classics." 
Robinson  Crusoe.     "Everyman's  Library." 
Gulliver's  Travels.     "Everyman's  Library." 
The  Vicar  of  Wakefield.    Winston's  "  Illustrated  Handy 

Classics." 
Pamela.     "Everyman's  Library." 
The  Adventures  of  Joseph  Andrews.    Edited  by  George 

Saintsbury. 

ECONOMICS  AND   HISTORY 

Wealth  of  Nations.     "Everyman's  Library." 
Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire.     "Everyman's 
Library." 


l86  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

BIOGRAPHY 
BoswELL,  Life  of  Dr.  Johnson.    "  Everyman's  Library." 

HELPFUL  BOOKS  ON  THE  PERIOD 

The  Age  of  Pope,  John  Dennis.     (George  Bell  &  Sons.)' 

Eighteenth  Century  Verse,  Margaret  Lynn.     (The  Macmillan  Company.) 

English  Romanticism  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  H.  A.  Beers.     (Henry  Holt 

&  Co.) 
Cambridge  History  of  English  Literature,  Vols.  IX  and  X.     (Cambridge  Uni- 
versity Press.) 
Life  of  Dr.  Johnson,  James  Boswell.     (J.  M.  Dent  &  Co.) 
Life  of  Addison,  W.  J.  Courthope.     In  "English  Men  of  Letters"  Series. 

(The  Macmillan  Company.) 
English  Humorists  of  the  Eighteenth  Century,  W.  M.  Thackeray.     (Smith, 

Elder,  &  Co.) 
The  Development  of  the  English  Novel,  W.  F.  Cross.     (The  Macmillan  Com- 
pany.) 
The  Beginnings  of  the  English  Romantic  Movement,  W.  L.  Phelps.     (Ginn 

&Co.) 
English  Literature  of  the  Eighteenth  Century,  T.  S.  Perry.     (Harper's.) 
See  also  Bibliography  on  The  Essay,  in  Chapter  IX,  page  369. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  EARLY  NINETEENTH  CENTURY 

I 798-1 83 7 

I.   General  Characteristics 

Energy,  freedom,  and  poetry.  —  The  nineteenth  was  a  wonder- 
ful century.  In  nothing  was  it  more  wonderful  than  in  the  pro- 
duction of  literature.  The  achievements  of  statesmanship,  of 
commerce  and  industry,  and  of  scientific  invention  grow  to  be 
commonplace  not  long  after  their  practical  use  becomes  general, 
but  the  achievements  within  the  field  of  writing  which  are  worthy 
to  be  termed  literary,  increase  in  power  to  stimulate  admiration 
and  in  power  to  be  of  value  in  the  conduct  of  everyday  life.  "  By 
nothing  is  England  so  great  as  by  her  poetry,"  has  become  a  tru- 
ism. It  is  England's  poetry  that  is  distinctive  in  the  literary  field. 
"  Genius,"  said  Matthew  Arnold,  "  is  mainly  an  affair  of  energy, 
and  poetry  is  mainly  an  affair  of  genius ;  therefore,  a  nation  whose 
spirit  is  characterized  by  energy  may  well  be  eminent  in  poetry ;  — 
and  we  have  Shakespeare."  He  goes  on  to  say,  "  And  what 
that  energy,  which  is  the  life  of  genius,  above  everything  de- 
mands and  insists  upon,  is  freedom ;  entire  independence  of  all 
authority,  prescription,  and  routine,  —  the  fullest  room  to  ex- 
pand as  it  will."  The  days  in  which  England's  greatest  names 
in  poetry  occur,  the  names  of  Chaucer,  Shakespeare,  Milton, 
Wordsworth,  Shelley,  Tennyson,  and  Browning,  are  days 
in  which   England's   citizens   enjoyed   their   greatest   freedom 

187 


l8d  ENGLISH  LITER/VTURE 

of  thought  and  of  action,  —  the  days  of  Edward  III,  of  Eliza- 
beth, of  the  Commonwealth,  and  of  Victoria. 

Grouping  of  the  literature.  —  It  is  best  to  think  of  the  litera- 
ture of  the  entire  nineteenth  century  as  falling  into  three  groups, 
from  1798  to  1837,  from  1837  to  1890,  and  from  1890  on.  The 
year  1837  is  an  excellent  date  at  which  to  close  the  consideration 
of  the  literature  of  the  early  years  of  the  century,  not  because 
Victoria  came  to  the  throne  at  that  time,  but  because,  though 
Wordsworth  lived  on  until  1850,  nearly  all  the  writers  who 
accomplished  much  of  anything  within  the  first  third  of  the 
century  were  either  dead  or  by  1837  had  ceased  writing  anything 
of  permanent  value.  Even  Macaulay  and  Dickens  had  by  1837 
barely  gotten  under  way  with  their  work,  only  the  Essays  on 
Milton,  Machiavelli,  and  Johnson  of  Macaulay's  important  works 
having  been  published  before  1840,  and  only  the  Sketches  by 
Boz  and  a  part  of  the  Pickwick  Papers  having  appeared  before 
1837  from  the  pen  of  Dickens. 

It  will  be  convenient,  as  well  as  give  proper  distinction  to  the 
works  of  the  period  from  1798  to  1837,  to  separate  them  into 
two  large  groups,  the  first  to  contain  the  poetry  of  Coleridge, 
Wordsworth,  Scott,  Byron,  Shelley,  and  Keats,  and  the  novels 
of  Jane  Austen  and  Sir  Walter  Scott,  and  the  second  to  contain 
all  the  other  works  important  enough  to  consider  here.  We 
shall  call  the  groups:  (i)  The  Greater  Poets  and  Novelists,  and 
(2)The  Lesser  Writers  of  the  Period. 

II.  The  Greater  Poets  and  Novelists 
I.    Poets 

The  "Romantic  Revival."  —  When  we  open  the  pages  of 
the  great  poets  of  this  immensely  rich  period,  pages  palpitating 
with  the  sensitiveness  of  imagination  to  all  that  the  human 


THE   EARLY  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  189 

mind  and  heart  had  experienced,  was  experiencing,  and  longed 
to  experience  for  the  first  time,  we  are  face  to  face  with  the 
products  of  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  movements  in  the 
history  of  man.  This  was  the  movement  which  is  now  in  a 
hackneyed  sort  of  way  called  the  "  revival  of  romance."  It 
was  hardly  a  revival  or  a  renewal;  it  was,  rather,  a  strong 
accentuation  of  what  had  never  ceased  to  be  a  powerful  human 
motive,  namely,  a  curiosity  about  and  wonder  at  and  love  for 
things  that  are  strange. 

This  curiosity  and  wonder  and  love  for  the  strange  took  all 
sorts  of  forms.  In  Keats  there  was  a  deep  interest  in  the  things 
that  suggested  the  life  of  the  old  Greeks,  as  his  Ode  on  a  Grecian 
Urn  so  marvelously  shows.  In  Sir  Walter  Scott  there  was 
profound  attraction  for  things  that  had  been  important  in  the 
life  of  the  medieval  people,  as  his  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel  so 
fascinatingly  reveals.  In  Coleridge  there  was  an  intense  love 
for  things  that  are  supernatural,  or  that  cannot  be  explained 
according  to  the  laws  of  nature  with  which  we  are  acquainted. 
This  is  illustrated  by  his  Ancient  Mariner.  In  Shelley  there  was 
the  deepest  desire  for  an  understanding  of  the  profoundly 
spiritual  elements  in  the  life  of  man  and  the  universe,  as  is 
clearly  evident  in  that  poem  of  his  which  is  beyond'the  range  of 
praise,  Prometheus  Unbound.  In  Byron  there  was  the  endeavor, 
not  only  to  express  all  of  his  own  personal  emotions,  but  the 
endeavor  forcefully  to  communicate  those  emotions  to  others, 
and  thereby  to  *'  exploit  "  himself  upon  the  world,  that  is  to 
say,  selfishly  to  make  all  the  world  serve  him  and  his  desires, 
—  so  well  illustrated  in  his  dramas  of  Manfred  and  Cain. 
Then,  in  Wordsworth  there  was  the  turning  back  to  Nature, 
as  the  mother  of  us  all,  as  sympathetic  with  us,  full  of  solace 
for  us,  full  of  the  most  interesting  and  helpful  information  for  us, 
and  full  of  deepest  meaning  to  the  mind  that  would  see  and 


igo  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

reflect,  all  of  which  is  shown  in  what  many  think  to  be  the  greatest 
of  all  brief  poems,  the  Ode  on  Intimations  of  Immortality, 

All  of  these,  then,  were  elements  of  this  so-called  ''  Romantic 
Revival."  Interest  in  the  beautiful  and  vital  elements  of 
life  of  the  past,  not  the  medieval  past  alone,  but  ''  classic  " 
as  well  (for  Keats  was  as  much  interested  iji  Attic  marble  as 
Scott  in  Gothic  aisle) ;  interest  in  the  so-called  supernatural ; 
interest  in  the  truly  spiritual ;  interest  in  all  of  one's  own  per- 
sonal equipment;  interest  in  the  all-inclusive  life  of  Mother 
Nature,  —  these  were  romantic  interests. 

Romanticism  did  furnish  an  escape  from  the  commonplace; 
but  it  was  just  as  much  intensely  interested  in  the  common- 
place, because  it  found  new  meanings  in  the '  commonplace. 
Anything  new,  or  new  to  the  individual  in  such  way  as  to  arouse 
high  enthusiasm  or  newly  expressive  feeling  of  any  sort,  was 
"  romantic."  It  still  is,  if  one  must  have  a  name  for  it. 
Romanticism  in  that  age  was  as  much  speculative  as  it  was 
feelingful,  however.  Wordsworth  and  Shelley  are  the  best 
evidence  of  that.  Then,  further,  romanticism  must  not  be 
thought  of  as  opposed  always  to  realism ;  "its  peculiar  quality 
lies  in  this,  that  in  apparently  detaching  us  from  the  real  world, 
it  seems  to  restore  us  to  reality  at  a  higher  point."  Its  highest 
function  was  not  so  much  "  to  rekindle  the  soul  of  the  past," 
as  it  was  "  to  reveal  a  soul  where  no  eye  had  yet  discerned  it." 
Zest  for  discovery  of  all  sorts  was  the  deeply  ingrained  quality 
of  the  romantic  movement  at  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century 
and  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth,  as  it  had  been  in  the 
Elizabethan  days,  and  in  all  of  the  renaissance  period,  —  out 
of  which  last-named  period,  in  fact,  we  have  not  yet  passed. 
Innpvation  of  any  sort  is  "  romantic  "  to-day,  as  it  always  has 
been. 

To  discover  the  value  and  significance  of  neglected  things 


THE   EARLY  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  191 

was  one  of  the  greatest  missions  of  the  "  romantic  age."  It  is 
sometimes  thought  that  it  is  the  business  of  the  artist  to  better 
nature.  The  romanticists  considered  it  their  duty  to  under- 
stand nature,  not  to  better  her,  not  to  improve  upon  her.  It  is 
true  that  all  romanticism  is  based  upon  some  sort  of  desire, 
whether  earthly  or  transcendent ;  but  it  works  itself  out  in  its 
details  from  a  foundation  of  reality,  and  it  works  itself  up  to- 
wards the  discovery  of  the  true  or  the  real  meaning  of  what  has 
hitherto  been  un-understood  in  full  or  not  understood  at  all. 
It  bases  itself,  it  builds  itself,  upon  reality.  However  highly 
romantic  the  vision  may  be,  the  result  always  is  something  like 
this,  that 

Another  England  there  I  saw, 
Another  London  with  its  tower, 

Another  Thames  and  other  hills, 
And  another  pleasant  Surrey  bower ! 

But  it  is  these  things  with  a  difference.  The  philosophy  of 
Locke  and  Hume  had  reduced  all  our  experience  to  mere  succes- 
sion of  sensations.  The  romanticists  found  in  these  sensations 
a  suggestion  of  something  more  that  lay  behind  sensation,  be- 
hind time  and  place  and  circumstance.  Often  from  the  most 
ordinary  experiences  (and  this  was  particularly  true  of  Words- 
worth and  of  Burns)  the  inlook  into  the  deepest  things  could  be 
found.  Often  places  and  things  seemed  to  cry  aloud  that  they 
have  within  them  immemorial  and  unknown  mysteries  and  mean- 
ings. Even  in  science,  as  well  as  in  poetry,  while  every  step 
away  from  mystery  seems  bright,  clear,  and  immysterious, 
yet  the  end  of  it  all  is  a  deeper  mystery.  What  is  electricity  ? 
What  is  this  life  that  has  so  long  followed  a  process  of  "  evo- 
lution "?  What  is  mind?  Whither  are  we  tending?  Science 
carries  us  to  these  questions,  and  then  faces  things  as  ro- 
mantic as  any  poetic  dreamer  has  ever  faced. 


192  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

In  the  last  chapter,  we  defined  romance  as  that  kind  of 
writing  which  represents  the  mysterious  or  marvelous  in  either 
real  or  fancied  life. 

Coleridge,  Wordsworth,  Scott,  B)n*on,  Shelley,  and  Keats 
were  romantic  poets.  No  one  questions  that  in  some  of  their 
poems  they  were  sovereign  minstrels,  too.  There  is  no  contro- 
versy about  the  magnetic  melody,  the  splendid  beauty  of  a 
goodly  share  of  what  Coleridge,  Shelley,  and  Keats  wrote  in 
verse.  There  is  difference  of  opinion  about  much  that  was 
written  by  Wordsworth,  Scott,  and  Byron.  In  fact,  we  have 
some  slight  hesitation  in  including  Scott  among  the  great  poets 
of  the  time,  however  unexcelled  he  may  have  been  as  a  great 
romantic  novelist.  Some  would  have  as  much  hesitation  about 
Byron.  But  none  but  the  unimaginative  or  he  who  seeks  the 
highly  sensational  has  doubt  about  Wordsworth  when  reading 
some  of  his  poems.  All  of  these  men  are  great  in  the  perma- 
nent effect  they  have  created ;  some  chiefly  in  the  ever-renewed 
effect  of  the  direct  reading  of  their  own  works,  others  chiefly 
for  the  effect  produced  through  other  writers. 

Coleridge.  —  We  have  spoken  of  the  Lyrical  Ballads  published 
by  Coleridge  and  Wordsworth  in  1798.  The  Rime  of  the  Ancient 
Mariner  was  among  these.  Four  other  great  poems  Coleridge 
wrote.  One  was  a  translation  of  Wallenstein  from  the  German 
poet  Schiller.  The  translation  is  a  better  poem  than  the  origi- 
nal. The  three  other  great  poems  were  Kubla  Khan,  Love,  and 
Christabel.    These  three  and  the  Ancient  Mariner  are  all  dreams. 

A  word  about  the  everywhere-known  Ancient  Mariner. 
Lowell  has  called  attention  to  Coleridge's  sense  for  the  value 
of  diction,  or  choice  of  words,  when  he  chose  The  Ancient 
Mariner  as  a  title,  instead  of  "  The  Elderly  Seaman,"  just  as 
Wordsworth  did  when  he  chose  as  a  title  to  one  of  his  poems 
Intimations  of  Immortality  instead   of    '*  Hints  of  Deathless- 


THE   EARLY  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  193 

ness."  The  romantic  atmosphere  of  strangeness  is  at  once 
gained  by  such  a  title.  The  materials  of  this  poem  of  The 
Ancient  Mariner  are  "  eerie  tales  of  the  South  Sea,  old  voyages, 
saints'  legends,  a  dream  of  a  skeleton  ship,  and  the  modern 
sentiment  of  animal  sanctity."  Along  with  all  of  this,  Cole- 
ridge is  a  painter  of  wonderful  scenery.  But  the  subtle  analyzer 
of  the  human  soul,  the  penetrative  seer  into  the  psychology  of 
the  mind  of  man  is  at  work  here,  also,  because  the  leading 
thing  in  the  poem  is  the  passionate  feeling  and  thought  of  the 
mariner  himself.  And,  as  we  have  suggested,  all  is  built  upon 
reality,  as  the  "  light  of  common  day  "  in  the  last  stanzas  makes 
perfectly  clear ;  and  all  is  the  outcome  of  desire  for  a  certain  atti- 
tude which  the  poet  hopes  human  beings  will  take  in  their 
everyday  life.  Yet  if  the  poetry  of  this  era  had  a  beginning 
in  something  ''  new,"  it  was  in  the    Ancient   Mariner. 

Coleridge's  Kubla  Khan  is  but  a  fragment.  Professor 
Schelling  has  said  that  the  reading  of  this  poem  is  an  infallible 
touchstone  of  lyrical  appreciation.  By  that  he  means  that  one 
can  determine  whether  he  is  a  lover  of  lyrical  poetry  or  not  by 
the  way  in  which  he  responds  to  the  reading  of  this  poem. 
Nothing  in  the  English  language  surpasses  the  poem  in  imagina- 
tive phantasy  or  in  the  visionary  character  of  its  music.  Words- 
worth defined  style  as  "  the  incarnation  of  thought."  In 
Kubla  Khan  it  is  the  perfect  incarnation  of  vision.  It  would  seem 
impossible  more  perfectly  to  blend  substance  and  form  than  in 
this  superb  work  of  sheer  imaginative  power.  The  sound  of  the 
syllables,  each  by  itself,  is  unforgettable : 

In  Xanadu  did  Kubla  Khan 

A  stately  pleasure-dome  decree : 
Where  Alph,  the  sacred  river,  ran 
Through  caverns  measureless  to  man 

Down  to  a  sunless  sea  .  .  . 
o  • 


194  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

The  poem  entitled  Love  is  the  least  imaginative  of  the  four, 
but  it  was  more  popular  during  Coleridge's  life  than  the  others. 
Its  opening  stanza  is  characteristic  of  the  love  poetry  among  the 
romanticists : 

All  thoughts,  all  passions,  all  delights, 

Whatever  stirs  this  mortal  frame. 
All  are  but  ministers  of  Love, 

And  feed  his  sacred  flame. 

The  Ballad  oj  the  Dark  Ladie,  which  Love  was  intended  to 
introduce,  begins 

Beneath  yon  birch  with  silver  bark 

And  boughs  so  pendulous  and  fair, 
The  brook  falls  scattered  down  the  rock : 

And  all  is  mossy  there. 

And  there  upon  the  moss  she  sits. 

The  Dark  Ladie  in  silent  pain : 
The  heavy  tear  is  in  her  eye, 

And  drops  and  swells  again. 

The  first  of  these  two  stanzas  is  nearly  a  perfect  picture,  though 
a  little  short  of  the  foreground  painting  which  Ruskin  was  so 
enthusiastic  over  in  the  last  two  of  the  following  lines  of  Words- 
worth's, — 

So  fair,  so  sweet,  withal  so  sensitive ;  — 
Would  that  the  little  flowers  were  born  to  live 
Conscious  of  half  the  pleasure  which  they  give, 
That  to  the  mountain  daisy's  self  were  known 
The  beauty  of  its  star-shaped  shadow  thrown 
On  the  smooth  surface  of  the  naked  stone. 

Musical  as  Byron  and  Scott  were,  they  failed  when  they 
tried  to  play  the  harp  which  brought  forth  the  ethereal  music 
of   Coleridge's   Christabel.    There   is   little   quarrel   with    the 


THE  EARLY  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  195 

acceptance  of  this  poem  as  the  masterpiece  in  musical  verse. 
Like  Kubla  Khan,  it  is  a  fragment  only.  Coleridge  did  not 
possess  the  power  to  do  a  sustained  piece  of  work,  owing  to  his 
shattered  constitution ;  but  what  there  is  in  these  two  fragments 
is  pure  gold,  though  if  there  are  degrees  of  purity,  the  highest 
must  be  granted  to  ChristabeL  All  unpleasant  things  are  ex- 
cluded from  Christahel,  though  the  atmosphere  of  mental  un- 
certainty and  foreboding  is  all-pervasive  and  powerful.  It  is 
useless  to  try  to  get  the  true  music  of  such  a  poem  by  reading 
it  aloud,  but  no  other  poem  sings  itself  so  wonderfully  to  the 
Inner  ear  as  ChristabeL  In  a  preface  to  the  edition  of  181 6, 
Coleridge  said  of  this  poem,  "  In  my  very  first  conception  of  the 
tale,  I  had  the  whole  present  to  my  mind,  with  the  wholeness, 
no  less  than  with  the  loveliness,  of  a  vision;  I  trust  that  I 
shall  be  able  to  embody  in  verse  the  three  parts  yet  to  come 
.  .  .  the  metre  of  ChristabeL  is  not,  properly  speaking,  irreg- 
ular, though  it  may  seem  so  from  its  being  founded  on  a  new 
principle :  namely,  that  of  counting  in  each  line  the  accents, 
not  the  syllables.  Though  the  latter  may  vary  from  seven  to 
twelve,  yet  in  each  line  the  accents  will  be  found  to  be  only 
four.  Nevertheless,  this  occasional  variation  in  the  number  of 
syllables  is  not  introduced  wantonly,  or  for  the  mere  ends  of 
convenience,  but  in  correspondence  with  some  transition  in  the 
nature  of  the  imagery  or  passion." 

Effect  of  the  French  Revolution.  —  The  French  Revolution 
at  its  beginning  had  a  most  appealing  effect  upon  the  literary 
men  of  England.  We  have  already  called  attention  to 
the  sorrow  of  Cowper  over  the  wrongs  of  men;  nowhere,  he 
found,  were  the  poor,  in  particular,  more  downtrodden  than  in 
the  France  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Years  before  the  fall  of 
the  Bastille,  Cowper  had  denounced  that  terrible  prison  in  these 
words : 


196  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

Ye  horrid  towers,  the  abode  of  broken  hearts; 
Ye  dungeons,  and  ye  cages  of  despair. 
That  monarchs  have  supplied  from  age  to  age 
With  music  such  as  suits  their  sovereign  ears, 
The  sighs  and  groans  of  miserable  men ! 
There's  not  an  English  heart  that  would  not  leap 
To  hear  that  ye  were  fallen  at  last. 

Burns  had  been  among  the  first  heartily  to  greet  the  outbreak 
which  brought  about  the  downfall  of  the  French  monarchy.  He 
had  even  illegally  used  his  official  position  as  exciseman,  to  send 
small  cannon  to  the  aid  of  the  revolutionists. 

Wordsworth  later  described  his  own  feelings  at  that  time 
thus,  — 

For,  lo,  the  dread  Bastille 
With  all  the  chambers  in  its  horrid  towers, 
Fell  to  the  ground ;  by  violence  overthrown 
Of  indignation,  and  with  shouts  that  drowned 
The  crash  it  made  in  falling.     From  the  wreck 
A  golden  palace  rose,  or  seemed  to  rise, 
The  appointed  seat  of  equitable  law 
And  mild  paternal  sway. 

Coleridge  and  Southey,  too,  were  intensely  enthusiastic  in 
support  of  the  great  revolutionary  movement.  Byron  and 
Shelley  were  too  young  to  realize  the  meaning  of  the  Revolution 
at  the  time  it  was  going  on,  Byron  having  been  born  in  1788 
and  Shelley  in  1792;  but  the  revolutionary  spirit  survived  in 
them  after  the  reaction  against  what  Tennyson  later  called  the 
"  red  fool-fury  of  the  Seine  "  had  strongly  set  in. 

The  reaction  showed  itself,  as  we  have  already  pointed  out, 
with  terrible  strength  in  the  man  who,  Augustine  Birrell  has 
said,  "  saw  organized  society  steadily,  and  saw  it  whole,"  — 
Edmund  Burke.     Coleridge,  too,  changed  his  mind  about  the 


THE  EARLY  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  197 

Revolution.  In  his  France:  an  Ode,  the  poet  described  his 
own  attitude  in  1792  and  1793, — 

When  France  in  wrath  her  giant-limbs  upreared, 

And  with  that  oath,  which  smote  air,  earth,  and  sea, 
Stamped  her  strong  foot  and  said  she  would  be  free, 

Bear  witness  for  me,  how  I  hoped  and  feared  ! 

But  when  French  armies  crushed  Switzerland  and  annexed 
Geneva  to  France,  Coleridge  in  1797  felt  that  true  liberty  had 
been  forgotten : 

O  France,  that  mockest  Heaven,  adulterous,  blind, 

And  patriot  only  in  pernicious  toils. 
Are  these  thy  boasts.  Champion  of  humankind? 

To  mix  with  Kings  in  the  low  lust  of  sway, 
Yell  in  the  hunt,  and  share  the  murderous  prey; 
To  insult  the  shrine  of  Liberty  with  spoils 

From  freemen  torn;   to  tempt  and  to  betray? 

Wordsworth.  —  Wordsworth,  like  Coleridge,  and  Southey, 
too,  had  also  hoped  much  from  the  Revolution,  but  had  been 
disappointed  when  the  Republic  of  France  was  transformed 
into  a  mihtary  despotism.  The  reaction  in  Wordsworth  and 
Southey  was  strongest  at  the  time  when  Spain  rose  against  the 
tyranny  of  Napoleon.  Landor  also  joined  them  in  the  reaction ; 
he  even  equipped  at  his  own  expense  a  thousand  soldiers  and 
led  them  against  the  French  foe.  Wordsworth's  revolt  against 
the  French  excesses  was  more  profound  than  that  of  either 
Coleridge  or  Southey  or  Landor,  as  his  nature  was  more  deep. 
Contrary  to  the  general  opinion  of  those  who  read  little  or 
none  of  Wordsworth  but  those  poems  of  his  in  which  the  sol- 
acing power  of  nature  is  reported  and  interpreted,  Wordsworth 
was  a  man  of  very  turbulent  spirit.  In  youth  he  was  violent 
and  moody;    in  early  manhood,  as  Professor  Dowden  says, 


1 98  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

"  he  was  stern,  bold,  worn  by  exhausting  ardors."  De  Quincey 
said  that  "  the  secret  fire  of  a  temperament  too  fervid  "  made 
him  look  older  than  he  was.  One  needs  to  read  all  his  poems 
to  appreciate  what  a  full-rounded  man  he  was.  "  Senses,  in- 
tellect, emotions,  imagination,  conscience,  will,  were  all  of  un- 
usual vigor;  but  each  helped  the  other,  each  controlled  the 
other,  each  was  to  the  other  an  impulse  and  a  law."  It  was  the 
"  massive  harmony "  of  all  these  powers  which,  after  all, 
made  him,  instead  of  an  eccentric  man,  the  equable  man  that 
he  was.  The  great  Poems  Dedicated  to  National  Independence 
and  Liberty  must  supplement  the  nature  poems,  if  one 
would  know  Wordsworth  fully.  It  is  easy  to  ridicule  We  are 
Seven  and  Alice  Fell  and  other  verses,  namby-pamby  with 
sickly  sentimentality  as  many  find  them,  but  to  arraign  their 
author  for  such  verses,  as  if  he  had  written  nothing  else,  reacts 
upon  the  critic,  for  it  is  evident  that  the  critic  is  then  far  from 
following  the  golden  rule  of  the  scholar,  "  Never  quote  a  book 
which  you  have  not  read  from  cover  to  cover."  Among  Words- 
worth's political  poems  we  find  such  lines  as  these,  referring  to 
Toussaint  L'Ouverture,  — 

Thou  hast  left  behind 
Powers  that  will  work  for  thee :   air,  earth,  and  skies; 
There's  not  a  breathing  of  the  common  wind 
That  will  forget  thee ;   thou  hast  great  allies ; 
Thy  friends  are  exultations,  agonies, 
And  love,  and  man's  unconquerable  mind. 

And  these,  — 

Now  our  life  is  only  drest 
For  show ;  mean  handy- work  of  craftsman,  cook, 
Or  groom  !  —  We  must  run  glittering  like  a  brook 
In  the  open  sunshine,  or  we  are  unblest : 
The  wealthiest  man  among  us  is  the  best : 
No  grandeur  now  in  nature  or  in  book 


THE  EARLY  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  199 

Delights  us.     Rapine,  avarice,  expense, 
This  is  idolatry ;   and  these  we  adore : 
Plain  living  and  high  thinking  are  no  more : 
The  homely  beauty  of  the  good  old  cause 
Is  gone  !  our  peace,  our  fearful  innocence, 
And  pure  religion  breathing  household  laws. 

And  these,  — 

It  is  not  to  be  thought  of  that  the  Flood 

Of  British  freedom,  which,  to  the  open  sea 

Of  the  world's  praise,  from  dark  antiquity 

Hath  flowed,  *  with  pomp  of  waters,  un withstood,' 

Roused  though  it  be  full  often  to  a  mood 

Which  spurns  the  check  of  salutary  hands, 

That  this  most  famous  Stream  in  bogs  and  sands  ^ 

Should  perish ;   and  to  evil  and  to  good  , 

Be  lost  forever.     In  our  halls  is  hung 

Armory  of  the  invincible  Knights  of  old : 

We  must  be  free  or  die,  who  speak  the  tongue 

That  Shakespeare  spake ;    the  faith  and  morals  hold 

Which  Milton  held.  —  In  everything  we  are  sprung 

Of  Earth's  first  blood,  have  titles  manifold. 

Wordsworth  was  one  of  the  few  choice  spirits  of  earth  who 
rebelled  against  the  convenient  doctrine  of  conducting  life 
according  to  the  principle  of  expediency.  To  him  there  was 
but  one  "  supreme  expediency,"  —  Justice.  A  great  deal 
more  than  Coleridge  did,  he  followed  the  latter's  principle 
of  referring  facts  to  the  mightiness  of  his  own  inner  nature,  in 
"  opposition  to  those  forces  which  men  can  see  with  their  eyes 
and  reduce  to  figures  upon  a  slate." 

There  are  few  great  sonneteers  amid  the  poets  of  any 
nation.  England  has  her  full  share:  Shakespeare,  Milton, 
Wordsworth,  Keats,  Mrs.  Browning,  the  two  Rossettis,  —  some 
would  add  Swinburne.     We  have  quoted  above  from  some  of 


200  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

the  political  sonnets  of  Wordsworth.  The  sonnet  beginning 
*'  The  World  is  too  much  with  us  "  is  better  known  than  any- 
other  of  Wordsworth's. 

To  write  a  sonnet  is  no  easy  task,  for  its  structure  of 
fourteen  lines,  its  relatively  fixed  rhyme  scheme,  its  division 
into  two  parts,  one  of  eight  lines,  the  other  of  six  lines,  with  their 
subdivisions  into  four  lines  and  three  lines,  its  content  of  general 
statement,  elaboration  into  details,  the  turning  about  of  thought 
to  view  it  at  another  angle,  the  application  or  summing  up  of 
all,  —  these  things  require  thinking  and  care,  however  forceful 
the  passion  of  thought  and  emotion  may  be.  Upon  West- 
minster Bridge  is  a  wonderfully  magnificent  picture,  especially 
to  those  who  know  London. 

Earth  has  not  anything  to  show  more  fair ; 
Dull  would  he  be  of  soul  who  could  pass  by 
A  sight  so  touching  in  its  majesty : 
This  City  doth  now  hke  a  garment  wear 

The  beauty  of  the  morning :  silent,  bare, 
Ships,  towers,  domes,  theatres,  and  temples  lie 
Open  unto  the  fields,  and  to  the  sky,  — 
All  bright  and  glittering  in  the  smokeless  air. 

Never  did  sun  more  beautifully  steep 
In  his  first  splendour  valley,  rock,  or  hill ; 
Ne'er  saw  I,  never  felt,  a  calm  so  deep ! 

The  river  glideth  at  his  own  sweet  will : 
Dear  God  !  the  very  houses  seem  asleep ; 
And  all  that  mighty  heart  is  lying  still ! 

The  sonnet  as  a  type  of  lyric  poetry  was  well  suited  to  the 
balanced,  contemplative  spirit  of  Wordsworth.  He  loved  to 
ponder,  and  to  discipline  his  intellectual  and  emotional  ideas. 
The  sonnet  hardly  permits  of  strains  of  "  unpremeditated  art  " ; 
and  Wordsworth's  sonnet  To  a  Sky-Lark,  beautiful  as  it  is, 


THE  EARLY  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  20I 

lacks  the  spontaneity  of  Shelley's  longer  lyric  to  the  same 
ethereal  minstrel.  Wordsworth  wrote  his  praise  of  this  pil- 
grim of  the  sky  in  both  a  fourteen  and  an  eighteen-line  poem,  — 
the  latter  an  unusual  variation  from  what  it  is  the  custom 
to  call  a  sonnet,  but  this  illustrates  the  freedom  from  convention 
which  the  man  who  loved  discipline  so  much  was  willing, 
nevertheless,  to  take. 

Of  all  Wordsworth's  hundreds  of  poems  the  greatest  are  the 
Ode  on  Intimations  of  Immortality  and  the  Lines  Composed  above 
Tintern  Abbey,  the  Ode  being  the  superior  of  the  two.  Close  to 
these  in  greatness  come  The  Affliction  of  Margaret,  The  Dafodils, 
some  of  the  political  sonnets,  and  passages  here  and  there  in 
The  Excursion  and  The  Prelude.  The  work  of  Wordsworth 
was  too  multitudinous  to  permit  more  than  the  merest  sugges- 
tions concerning  it  here.  One  will  not  read  far  in  his  work, 
it  may  be  remarked,  without  concluding  that  the  interpretation 
of  romanticism  which  makes  it  a  convertible  term  with  medie- 
valism is  nothing  short  of  absurd.  It  is  his  love  of  nature, 
and  his  belief  that  nature  and  man  are  akin,  that  nature  has 
power  to  subdue  and  to  solace  passionate  and  suffering  man, 
which  have  given  Wordsworth  his  influence  upon  poets  and 
readers  who  are  not  poets.  This  attitude  to  nature  is  the 
universally  recognized  thing  about  him.  Matthew  Arnold 
has  made  most  of  this  aspect  of  Wordsworth's  work.  Among 
many  other  things  he  said  about  Wordsworth  is  the  following,  — 

Time  may  restore  us  in  his  course 
Goethe's  sage  mind  and  Byron's  force; 
But  where  will  Europe's  latter  hour 
Again  find  Wordsworth's  healing  power? 

"  Wordsworth,"  says  Stopford  Brooke,  "  conceived  that 
nature  was  alive.     It  had,  he  imagined,  one  living  soul  which, 


202  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

entering  into  flower,  stream,  or  mountain,  gave  them  each  a 
soul  of  their  own.  Between  this  Spirit  in  nature  and  the  mind 
of  man  there  was  a  pre-arranged  harmony  which  enabled 
nature  to  communicate  its  own  thought  to  man,  and  man  to 
reflect  upon  them,  until  an  absolute  union  between  them  was 
established."  Efed  of  Natural  Objects,  Stepping  Westward, 
Stray  Pleasures,  Brougham  Castle,  and  Resolution  and  Independ- 
ence are  among  the  large  number  of  poems  that  help  to  give  an 
idea  of  the  poet's  attitude  to  nature.  Wordsworth  had  also 
much  of  the  affection  for  animals  and  children  which  Coleridge 
and  Blake  had.  The  White  Doe  df  Rylstone  and  many  passages 
in  The  Prelude  make  this  more  finely  evident  than  some  more 
frequently  read,  but  more  trivial  poems.  Of  course,  TJie 
Solitary  Reaper  and  She  was  a  Phantom  of  Delight  should  be 
given  due  praise,  for  from  them  thousands  have  found  the  glow 
and  glory  which  does  really  fill  the  common  life  of  all  of  us,  if 
we  have  but  eyes  to  see.  No  other  English  poet  has  had  such 
full  and  true  sympathy,  such  strong  feeling  for  nature,  as  had 
Wordsworth. 

To  me  the  meanest  flower  that  blows  can  give 
Thoughts  that  do  often  lie  too  deep  for  tears 

meant  to  Wordsworth  precisely  what  it  said.  And  so,  also, 
the  little  poem  beginning  "  She  dwelt  among  the  untrodden 
ways,"  —  it  meant  what  it  said,  to  a  profoundly  thinking  as 
well  as  feeling  man,  as  much  as  did  his  Ode  to  Duty. 

Scott.  —  The  Wizard  of  the  North  was  the  appropriate  name 
which  was  given  to  Sir  Walter  Scott.  Walter  Scott  was  brought 
up  upon  legends  and  stories  and  poetic  background  of  all 
sorts,  out  of  which  stands  prominently  Percy's  Reliques,  which 
was  a  sort  of  Bible  to  the  writers  of  the  Romantic  "  revival." 
He  had,  however,  the  careful  training  which  preparation  for  the 


Sir  Walter  Scott 


THE  EARLY  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  2O3 

profession  of  law  gives.  He  was  also  an  inveterate  reader  of 
history.  That  he  successfully  translated  Goetz  von  Berlichingen 
from  the  German  of  Goethe  is  evidence  that  he  was  a  good 
linguist.  He  also  translated  Burger's  Lenore.  Furthermore, 
he  gave  a  goodly  amount  of  time  and  indefatigable  energy  to 
collecting  material  for  a  book  called  Minstrelsy  of  the  Scottish 
Border  J  which  had  as  much,  or  nearly  as  much,  effect  on  later 
poetry  as  Percy's  Reliques.  All  this  was  preparing  him  for 
his  long  narrative  poems,  and  for  his  novels. 

We  have  suggested  that  there  may  be  some  hesitation  as  to 
the  correctness  of  including  Sir  Walter  among  the  great  poets 
of  this  period.  He  himself  thought,  when  Byron  became 
famous,  that  there  was  no  further  use  in  his  attempting  to  court 
popularity  by  the  writing  of  poetry;  and  it  was  undoubtedly 
true  that  when  Coleridge  and  Wordsworth  attained  popu- 
larity, late  in  Wordsworth's  life,  and  when  Tennyson  became  the 
vogue,  Scott's  power  over  the  masses  who  read  poetry  waned 
very  perceptibly.  Yet  in  his  own  day,  from  the  publication  of 
The  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel  until  1832,  the  year  of  his  death, 
he  was  the  man  of  the  hour  with  the  reading  public.  And  erven 
yet,  though  Germany,  France,  and  even  America  do  not  read 
him  with  the  unshaken  loyalty  with  which  he  was  first  received 
abroad,  in  Great  Britain  he  is  supremely  loved.  It  is  good  that 
he  should  be,  for  in  him  there  was  nothing  unclean,  cheap,  low, 
or  morbid.  If  the  above-mentioned  poem  and  The  Lady  of 
the  Lake  have  lost  something  of  their  former  enormous  popu- 
larity, it  has  been  more  because  Scott's  own  novels,  Waverley 
and  the  rest,  have  given  the  English  reading  public  more  of  the 
same  thing  in  a  form  they  like  better  than  the  poetic  form. 
Rokeby  and  The  Lord  of  the  Isles  suffered  also  because  they  were 
overshadowed,  not  so  much  by  the  novels,  as  by  The  Lay  and 
The  Lady.     Marmion  was  not  very  acceptable  to  the  critics 


264  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

when  it  appeared,  but  it  was  popular  with  the  pubHc.  Readers 
outside  of  Great  Britain  have  agreed  with  the  critics  of  Scott's 
time,  and  have  not  found  Marmion  so  good  as  the  two  daz- 
zling successes,  The  Lay  and  The  Lady.  The  Vision  of  Don 
Roderick  was  Scott's  message  against  Napoleonic  domination, 
just  as  was  Southey's  epic  poem,  Roderick,  the  Last  of  the 
Goths,  and  Landor's  Count  Julian,  but  it  was  inferior  to 
them.  Scott  had  not  had  the  military  experience  in  the 
Iberian  Peninsula  which  Landor  secured;  nor  had  he 
gone  delving  deep  into  the  archives  of  Spain  as  Sou  they 
did.  The  Bridal  oj  Triermain  also  was  not  especially 
successful. 

But  there  is  no  question  of  the  unlimited  interest  which 
The  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel  aroused  and  the  craving  for  roman- 
tic sensation  which  it  has  helped  to  appease.  It  is  as  good  in 
its  own  way  as  Coleridge's  Christabel  (to  which  it  owes  much) 
is  in  its  way.  But  the  way  of  The  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel  is 
the  way  of  the  effective  dramatic  story,  while  that  of  Christabel 
is  twofold,  that  of  picture  and  of  music.  The  traditional 
marvel  with  which  The  Lay  is  concerned  is  a  fountain  of  per- 
petual delight.  There  was  much  of  music,  too,  in  this  poem 
of  Sir  Walter's,  though  the  songs  in  The  Lady  of  the  Lake  are 
better  known,  partly  because  The  Lady  is  so  much  employed 
as  a  poem  for  study  in  the  schools.  This  poem  of  the  Scot- 
tish Highlands  extended  general  interest  both  in  beauty  of 
landscape  and  in  type  of  character.  It  has  put  upon  the 
map,  in  the  minds  of  men,  a  new  geographical  entity,  The 
Scott  Country. 

Scott,  as  was  most  natural,  inspired  a  host  of  imitators.  But 
nothing  has  taken  the  place  of  The  Lady  of  the  Lake  and  The 
Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel  in  the  affections  of  those  who  love 
romantic  story  in  easy-to-read  verse. 


THE  EARLY  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  205 

Romantic  features,  once  more.  —  Wordsworth  better  than 
any  other  poet  represented  that  aspect  of  the  romantic  move- 
ment which  showed  itself  in  a  turning  to  nature.  Coleridge 
best  represented  t^at  aspect  of  it  which  has  been  called  the 
"  renaissance  of  wonder."  All  through  the  eighteenth  century, 
there  had  been  some  turning  to  nature  for  comfort  and  solace 
and  guidance,  but  none  such  as  led  Wordsworth  to  assert  that 

One  impulse  from  the  vernal  wood 

Can  teach  us  more  of  man, 
Of  moral  evil  and  of  good, 

Than  all  the  sages  can. 

There  had  been  much  attempting  to  secure  "  creepy  "  effects 
by  such  crude  mechanical  horrors  as  Horace  Walpole  and  Mrs. 
Radcliffe  were  skilled  in,  but  only  Coleridge  succeeded  in  making 
of  the  supernatural  such  a  literary  force  as  it  had  been  in  the 
hands  of  ancient  Greeks  and  Hebrews.  Sir  Walter  made  of  the 
supernatural  something  only  charming,  not  something  con- 
soling or  powerfully  moving  as  did  Wordsworth  and  Cole- 
ridge. Wordsworth  and  Coleridge,  and  Southey  and  Scott, 
and  Landor,  too,  had  been  greatly  aroused  by  the  human 
cataclysm  known  as  the  French  Revolution;  but  all  of  them 
reacted  so  strongly  against  the  tyranny  which  followed  it,  that 
they  were  looked  upon  at  the  time,  especially  Wordsworth,  as 
renegades  to  the  cause  of  Liberty. 

Two  more  great  poets,  Byron  and  Shelley,  and  one  minor 
one,  Tom  Moore,  were  unshaken  in  their  revolutionary  fervor, 
Tom  Moore  partly  because  it  gave  him  the  opportunity  for  much 
humorous  writing;  therefore,  he  may  have  been  partly  in- 
sincere. Byron  certainly  was  often  insincere,  though  not  so 
much  in  his  support  of  what  was  revolutionary  as  in  his  attacks 
upon  what  was  ultra-conservative.     Shelley  had  all  the  sin- 


2o6  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

cerity  which  man  is  capable  of.  Keats  was  the  only  one  of 
the  great  romantic  poets  who  was  not  interested  in  political 
movements. 

One  who  finds  humor  in  even  serious  situations  will  be  de- 
lighted with  reading  Tom  Moore's  The  Fudge  Family  in  Paris. 
Mr.  Fudge  undertakes  to  write  an  account  of  his  touring  in 
France,  and  expects  in  it  to  prove 

that  all  the  world,  at  present,  ^ 

Is  in  a  state  extremely  pleasant ; 
That  Europe —  thanks  to  royal  swords 
And  bay'nets,  and  the  Duke's  commanding, 
Enjoys  a  peace  —  which,  like  the  Lord's, 
Passeth  all  human  understanding. 

Byron.  —  George  Gordon  Byron  was,  in  almost  all  things, 
"  a  house  divided  against  itself."  Even  in  the  theory  and  prac- 
tice of  poetic  writing  he  desperately  wanted  to  think  and  do  as 
Dryden  and  Pope  had  done,  but  it  was  impossible  for  him  to 
keep  from  overflowing  with  the  romantic  ideas  and  feelings  with 
which  his  being  was  crowded  full. 

He  first  wrote,  in  1807,  a  group  of  pieces  published  as 
Hours  of  Idleness.  This  book  was  one  of  fluent  verses,  though 
with  but  little  of  personal  stamp  upon  them.  The  book  was 
attacked  vigorously,  perhaps  excessively,  in  the  Edinburgh 
Review.  The  attack  served  to  arouse  in  Byron  all  the  anger 
there  was  in  him,  and,  although  he  was  still  an  undergraduate 
student  at  Cambridge  University,  there  came  forth  a  retort 
upon  the  reviewer  that  made  Byron  thenceforth  a  force  which 
must  be  reckoned  with.  He  entitled  his  fetort  English  Bards 
and  Scotch  Reviewers.  There  was  much  of  foolish  satire  in  this 
reply,  but  all  was  so  well  put  that  the  sting  of  it  remained 
where  it  was  thrust.  The  invective  is  worthy  of  being  ranked 
with   the   literary   satires  by  those  whom   Byron    longed   to 


THE   EARLY  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  207 

follow  as  his  masters,  Dryden  and  Pope.  It  was  a  sort  of 
turning  upside  down,  though,  of  Pope's  Dunciad,  for  in  it  Byron 
struck  with  his  malice  the  great  master-poets  of  the  day,  while 
Pope  had  lashed  only  the  little  fellows.  Rogers  and  Camp- 
bell alone  had  no  gibes  cast  at  them  by  the  young  satirist,  for 
they  were  trying  to  keep  alive  the  manner  and  spirit  of  Pope, 
which  Byron  so  much  admired. 

Byron's  first  really  good  poetry  consisted  of  the  first  two 
cantos  of  Childe  Harold,  published  in  181 2.  These,  and  the 
succeeding  cantos  published  later,  caught  the  public  fancy 
immediately.  There  was  no  such  thing  in  that  day  as 
descriptive  journalism,  and  Childe  Harold  did  for  the  read- 
ing public  precisely  what  the  traveling  correspondent  does 
to-day.  Furthermore,  Byron  was  adroit  enough  to  take  his 
readers  through  the  countries  and  over  the  very  ground  many 
of  them  had  been  traversing  during  the  Napoleonic  wars.  The 
wars  could  be  all  lived  over  again  as  these  fascinating  descrip- 
tions were  perused,  and  the  wars  which  were  still  in  progress 
could  be  followed  with  more  precision  and  keener  interest 
because  of  the  picturesque  background  which  the  poet  was 
furnishing.  Description  was  Byron's  forte.  Macaulay  in  his 
essay  on  Byron  says  of  his  manner  that  it  "  is  almost  unequaled ; 
tapid,  sketchy,  full  of  vigor ;  the  selection  happy ;  the  strokes 
few  and  bold."  This  is  the  successful  journaHstic  manner. 
Macaulay  thinks  that  in  this  Byron  was  superior  to  Words- 
worth, at  least  in  the  effect  of  attracting  multitudes  of  readers. 
He  adds,  "  In  spite  of  the  reverence  which  we  feel  for  the  genius 
of  Mr.  Wordsworth  we  cannot  but  think  that  the  minuteness 
of  his  descriptions  often  diminishes  their  effect."  He  says, 
further,  that  Byron's  "  descriptions,  great  as  was  their  intrinsic 
merit,  derived  their  principal  interest  from  the  feeling  which 
always  mingled  with  them.     He  was  himself  the  beginning. 


208  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

the  middle,  the  end,  of  all  his  own  poetry,  the  hero  of  every  tale, 
the  chief  object  in  every  landscape." 

Then  came  the  second  group  of  productions.  Among  others 
in  this  group  were  the  Giaour,  the  Bride  of  Abydos,  the  Corsair, 
and  Lara.  Here  the  author  challenged  comparison  with  Scott, 
but  oriental  love  and  battle  took  the  place  of  love  and  battle  in 
the  Scottish  border  chivalry.  Byron's  descriptions  were  more 
intense  than  Scott's,  but  they  failed  to  picture  any  part  of 
society  except  that  with  which  the  hero  himself  was  concerned. 
They  are  not  epic,  then,  in  the  sense  that  Scott's  poems  were 
epic,  for  they  did  not  spring  from  the  life  of  the  people. 

Then  followed  the  third  canto  of  Childe  Harold.  Byron  had 
now  exiled  himself  from  England,  because  of  the  hostility  of 
English  society  to  his  manner  of  living.  He  was  in  a  temper  of 
storm  and  stress.  The  most  splendid  of  his  phrases  and  the 
swiftest  moving  music  in  his  verse  here  appear,  though  there  is 
no  such  subtle  cadence  nor  any  such  exquisite  melody  as  in  the 
verse  of  Coleridge  or  of  Shelley.  The  Prisoner  of  Chillon  was 
also  produced  at  about  this  time,  1816. 

Byron  soon  came  under  the  influence  of  Goethe's  Faust,  and 
the  drama  called  Manfred  was  the  outcome.  Byron  himself 
asserted  that  it  was  the  Jungfrau,  with  its  sublime  solitudes, 
that,  more  than  Faust,  had  influenced  the  writing  of  Manfred. 
Byron  desired  that  Manfred,  and  Cain,  a  later  dramatic  poem, 
should  be  thought  of  as  "  mysteries  "  rather  than  dramas.  They 
were  intended  to  have  a  spiritual  meaning,  such  as  the  old  mys- 
tery was  intended  to  have.  In  Manfred  Byron  desired  to  teach 
that  the  tree  of  Knowledge  was  something  different  from  the 
tree  of  Life.  Knowledge  could  not  satisfy  a  guilty  conscience. 
Byron  seems  to  most  readers  to  have  been  posing  in  this  dramatic 
poem,  just  as  he  was  at  the  outset  of  his  career  when,  with  the 
characteristic  aplomb  of  the  college  student,  he  entitled  his 


THE   EARLY  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  209 

undergraduate  effort  Hours  of  Idleness.  In  modern  parlance, 
he  was  "  bluffing." 

The  next  phase  of  Byron's  work  came  in  Venice,  whither  he 
had  removed  from  Switzerland.  A  visit  to  Rome,  the  great 
spectacular  city  sitting  amid  the  ruins  of  its  ancient  glories, 
inspired  Byron  to  the  extending  of  his  empire  over  the  minds 
of  men  in  another  direction  from  any  thus  far  taken,  and  the 
magnificent  fourth  canto  of  Childe  Harold  now  opened  up 
human  aspects  of  ancient  art  in  such  manner  as  most  of  his 
readers  had  never  imagined  possible. 

This  effort  in  the  name  of  art  was  almost  immediately  fol- 
lowed by  Beppo.  Facile  wit  and  abundant  gayety  found  its 
way  to  the  surface,  a  vein  surely  as  welcome  as  that  of  his 
morbid  and  passionate  declaiming.  So  much  welcomed  was 
Beppo  that  an  extended  satiric  epic  was  at  once  planned  by 
Byron  and  called  Don  Juan,  four  cantos  of  which  appeared 
between  September,  1818  and  November,  1819.  Upon  this  poem 
Byron  worked  intermittently  for  three  years.  All  of  his  revolu- 
tionary sentiments  poured  their  currents  into  this  satire;  all 
his  desire  to  overthrow  government  as  it  is,  social  order  and 
convention  as  they  are,  religion  as  it  is.  He  conceived  a  vicious 
and  unprincipled  character  in  Don  Juan,  and  then  led  him 
through  the  ranks  of  society  in  which  accomplishments  of  mind 
and  of  manner  count  for  everything,  and  showed  what  ills  be- 
fall such  a  character  when  it  comes  into  touch  with  all  the 
conventionalism  of  society.  The  established  order  in  Italy, 
England,  and  Germany,  Byron  attacked  most  of  all.  But  his 
opinions  were  too  radical  for  his  time,  and  still  are  for  any  order 
of  society  which  is  not  given  over  to  a  sort  of  free  and  unthink- 
ing vulgarity.  However  much  Byron  played  the  cynic,  though, 
he  was  always  energetic,  and  his  directness  told  upon  those 
for  whom  it  was  intended. 


2IO  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

Finally,  came  a  brief  period  and  a  group  of  poems  of  which  the 
Vision  of  Jttdgment  and  Cain  are  most  worthy  of  praise.  The 
first  of  these  two  was  an  arraignment  of  the  incompetent  king, 
George  III,  and  is  most  interesting  reading  for  the  student  of 
his  period.  The  second  was  the  most  thoughtful  of  all  of 
Byron's  works.  It  was  an  examination  of  the  world-old  problem 
of  the  origin  of  evil  and  its  final  effects.  It  is  hardly  so  magnifi- 
cent in  poetry  as  Manfred,  but  it  is  more  profound  in  thought. 

Byron  died  fighting  for  Greek  freedom,  in  1824.  He  was 
trying  to  redeem  also,  we  think,  the  life  which  he  had  lived 
so  much  apart  from  all  moral  restraint.  Macaulay  wrote  of 
him  as  "  the  most  celebrated  Englishman  of  the  nineteenth 
century.''  But  Macaulay  was  only  twenty-four  years  old 
when  Byron  died,  and  was  not  much  older  when  he  wrote  that 
statement  for  the  Edinburgh  Review.  Yet  this  opinion  was 
held  by  Goethe  and  by  Victor  Hugo.  They,  too,  however,  were 
Byron's  contemporaries,  and  the  judgment  of  even  the  next 
generation  went  against  them.  Tennyson  and  Arnold  soon 
taught  readers  of  poetry  to  demand  the  high  seriousness  which 
Byron  lacked.  Lack  of  earnestness,  of  sincerity,  and  bad  work- 
manship both  in  general  plan  and  in  detail,  even  in  grammar, 
have  told  heavily  against  Byron  as  a  poet.  His  own  lines  in 
Manfred  best  sum  up  the  man  himself : 

This  should  have  been  a  noble  creature :  he 

Hath  all  the  energy  which  would  have  made 

A  goodly  frame  of  glorious  elements, 

Had  they  been  wisely  mingled ;   as  it  is 

It  is  an  awful  chaos  —  light  and  darkness, 

And  mind  and  dust,  and  passions  and  pure  thoughts 

Mix'd  and  contending  without  end  or  order. 

Shelley.  —  While  Wordsworth  and  Scott  were  upholding  the 
traditions  of  the  ancient  order  of  society,  and  while  Byron  was 


THE  EARLY  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  211 

in  open  and  bold  and  purposely  destructive  revolt  against 
those  traditions,  Percy  Bysshe  Shelley  took  a  sort  of  middle 
ground  between  the  lovers  of  old  things  and  the  one  who 
would  destroy  the  old.  Shelley  was  every  whit  as  uncon- 
querably unconventional  as  Byron.  "  All  human  law  and  dis- 
cipline," says  Samuel  R.  Gardiner,  the  historian,  "  seemed  to 
him  to  be  the  mere  invention  of  tyrants,  by  which  the  instinctive 
craving  of  the  soul  for  beauty  of  form  and  nobility  of  life  was 
repressed."  And  yet  this  rebel  against  society  as  it  was  had 
the  greatest  eagerness  of  soul,  a  very  passionate  ecstasy  of 
desire  for  the  building  up  of  an  order  of  society  that  would 
help  .the  world  to  be  beautiful  and  to  be  good.  Shelley  hoped 
for  an  impossibly  good  and  beautiful  world  and  prophesied 
that  it  would  come.  And  yet  he  was  far  more  sensible  than  the 
reformers  and  the  revolutionists  nearly  always  are.  For,  though 
his  ideal  for  men  was  that  they  should  be 

Equal,  unclassed,  tribeless,  and  nationless, 
Exempt  from  awe,  worship,  and  degree, 

yet  he  expected  this  to  be  only  in  the  far-distant  future.  **  The 
great  thing,"  he  said,  "  is  to  hold  the  balance  between  popular 
impatience  and  tyrannical  obstinacy  ...  I  am  one  of  those 
whom  nothing  will  satisfy,  but  who  are  ready  to  be  partially 
satisfied  in  all  that  is  practicable."  It  is  such  beliefs  that  are 
overlooked  by  many  of  Shelley's  worshipers,  as  well  as  by  his 
adverse  critics,  and  therefore  they  both  misunderstand  him. 

Like  Edmund  Spenser,  Shelley  was  almost  pure  poet.  He 
was  the  most  completely  lyrical  of  all  English  poets.  From 
his  own  heart  welled  up  all  he  wrote,  and  it  all  came  refined 
through  suffering  that  was  deeply  felt.     He  wrote  that  poets 

Are  cradled  into  poetry  by  wrong, 

They  learn  in  suffering  what  they  teach  in  song. 


212  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

Swift  and  fair  were  his  creations.  All  were  done  and  his  life 
over  before  his  thirtieth  year  was  completed.  He  said  of  him- 
self that  his  life  was  so  crowded  with  striking  and  varied  experi- 
ence that  he  ought  to  be  thought  of  along  with  men  ninety  years 
of  age.  Unlike  most  great  poets,  he  did  his  work  hastily,  and, 
therefore,  it  has  inequalities  in  style.  His  longer  works  lack  the 
perfection  which  his  shorter  pieces  attain.  It  is  in  a  general 
way  true  that  the  briefer  the  poem  he  wrote  the  finer  it  is. 
Saintsbury  thinks  that  the  Lament  beginning  "  O  world!  O 
life!  O  time!  "  consisting  of  but  ten  lines,  is  the  most  perfect 
thing  of  its  kind  that  all  poetry  contains. 

Perhaps  no  man  has  ever  been  attended  by  more  splendid 
visions,  excepting,  it  may  be,  the  ancient  Hebrew  prophets, 
Isaiah  and  Ezekiel  and  Hosea.  Yet  this  was  the  man  who  in 
his  school  days  spent  his  leisure  in  translating  Pliny  from  the 
Latin,  in  reading,  with  great  eagerness,  Locke,  Hume,  and  the 
French  materialistic  essayists,  in  writing  two  unreadable  novels, 
and  (somewhat  like  Wordsworth,  who  was  intensely  interested 
in  mathematics)  in  constantly  experimenting  with  chemicals. 
"  His  hands  and  clothes,"  says  Miss  Shelley,  "  were  constantly 
stained  and  corroded  with  acids,  and  it  only  seemed  too  probable 
that  some  day  the  house  would  be  burned  down,  or  some  serious 
mischief  happen  to  himself  or  others  from  the  explosion  of  com- 
bustibles." 

No  poet  was  ever  original  in  any  more  accurate  sense  than 
Shelley  was,  for  every  form  of  verse  that  came  from  his  pen  was 
filled  with  the  soul  of  its  writer.  And  at  times  there  is  some 
newness  in  the  form  of  the  verse  itself.  Coleridge  was  the 
pioneer  who  made  it  possible  for  those  who  followed  him  to 
write  in  forms  that  varied  from  the  traditions  of  the  past.  Yet 
the  originality  of  Shelley  in  musical  forms  rests  in  this,  —  that 
he  went  nearly  always  a  little  "  beyond  "  what  had  been  done 


THE  EARLY  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  213 

before.  Successful  originality  lies  not  in  eccentric  departures, 
but  in  new  building  upon  what  foundation  has  already  been 
laid.  So  it  is  that  when  we  speak  of  Shelley  as  owing  something 
now  to  this  man  and  then  to  that,  we  mean  that  he  began,  as 
the  wise  will,  with  what  others  have  achieved.  In  his  early 
work  Landor,  Southey,  and  Godwin  first  influenced  him,  then 
Wordsworth,  then  Peacock,  and  finally  Spenser. 

His  first  poem  of  worth  was  Queen  Mob,  printed,  though  with- 
out his  consent,  when  its  author  was  but  eighteen  years  of  age, 
in  1 81 2.  The  oriental  atmosphere  and  form  of  the  poem  were 
partly  suggested  by  the  work  of  Landor,  and,  even  more,  of 
Southey.  The  poem  is  a  strong  invective  against  wealth, 
militarism,  and  superstition.  Even  the  thought  of  Queen  Mab 
is  not  original,  except  in  the  passion  with  which  it  flames.  The 
view  of  human  life  is  absorbed  from  Shelley's  father-in-law, 
William  Godwin,  the  novelist  and  political  and  economic  philos- 
opher. Second  came  Alastor,  three  years  later  than  Queen 
Mab.  In  Alastor  may  be  traced  the  influence  of  Wordsworth. 
Yet  while  it  is  a  turning  to  nature  for  companionship  and  aid, 
"  nature  "  as  Shelley  thought  of  it  is  not  very  like  the  quiet 
and  solemn  environment  of  the  Westmoreland  Lakes.  It  is  a 
nature  of  loveliness,  and  occasionally  of  horror  that  is  not  of  the 
earth.  Not  from  the  spirit  which  informs  all  nature  does 
Shelley  expect  to  learn  the  secrets  of  existence,  as  Wordsworth 
does,  but  from  "  the  lips  of  some  lone  ghost."  Shelley's  imagina- 
tion had  not  yet  reached  the  organizing  level  of  Wordsworth's, 
but  was  given  over  to  detail.  He  had  not  yet  learned  to  look 
with  the  eye  of  the  truly  great,  Goethe  and  Wordsworth, 
upon  nature  as  the  garment  of  God. 

Another  influence  to  come  into  Shelley's  work  was  that  of 
the  Greek  spirit,  more  particularly  of  Plato,  under  the  stimulus 
of  Thomas  Love  Peacock,  who  for  this,  if  not  for  his  own  in- 


214  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

imi table  work,  should  be  ever  esteemed.  The  immediate  result 
was  Shelley's  Hymn  to  Intellectual  Beauty  and  Mont  Blanc, 
If  the  poet  had  written  nothing  else,  these  would  have  won  him 
an  immortal  name. 

Edmund  Spenser  was  still  another  element  of  influence  which 
entered  into  his  work.  The  Revolt  oj  Islam  was  written  in 
Spenserian  or  nine-lined  stanzas,  and  the  majestic  Britomart 
of  the  Faerie  Queen  gave  many  suggestions  for  the  heroine  of 
Shelley's  wild  romance.  Wildly  romantic  in  details  as  the  Re- 
volt of  Islam  is,  nevertheless  it  was  a  dazzling  story  of  the 
kindling  of  a  nation  to  freedom  at  the  call  of  a  poet-prophet, 
and  a  brilliant  celebration  of  love  as  the  sole  law  which  should 
govern  the  moral  world.  It  is  not  a  great  poem,  but  is  the  work 
of  a  poet  on  the  way  to  greatness. 

Shelley's  Lines  on  the  Euganean  Hills,  Prometheus  Un- 
bound, The  Cenci,  The  Cloud,  The  Sensitive  Plant,  To  a  Sky- 
lark, Ode  to  the  West  Wind,  A  Lament,  Recollection,  Adonais, 
Epipsychidion,  and  The  Triumph  of  Life  were  written  after 
Shelley  left  England  in  1818,  like  Byron  never  to  return. 

The  Lines  on  the  Euganean  Hills  is  worthy  the  distinction  of 
grouping  apart  from  the  others,  for  there  is  no  other  poem 
produced  by  him  before  or  after  so  excellent  for  realistic  de- 
scription. Shelley's  descriptions  are  usually  in  terms  of  Ideal 
Beauty,  but  here  we  have  something  new,  for  him,  because 
realistic.  Few,  almost  no  other,  of  his  landscapes  in  verse 
have  "  so  much  of  local  and  imaginative  veracity  as  that 
Venetian  sunrise  (in  these  Lines)  with  the  domes  and  towers 
rising  like  obelisks  in  a  glowing  furnace,  and  the  rooks  soaring 
along  the  dewy  mists,  their  purple  feathers  starred  with  gold." 

Prometheus  Unbound  and  The  Cenci  were  written  in  Rome 
during  1819.  These  poems  are  dramatic  in  form.  Shelley's 
Prometheus  is  an  ideal  reformer,  one  not  merely  defiant  but 


THE  EARLY  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  215 

interpenetrated  with  the  spirit  of  love.  Goethe  had  written 
of  Prometheus  as  typical  of  man's  shaping  intellect,  Byron 
had  written  of  him  as  a  symbol  of  man's  heroic  endurance,  but 
Shelley's  earth-born  Titan  united  both  these  qualities  and 
added,  as  we  have  said,  those  of  defiance  and  of  love,  —  an- 
other illustration  of  this  poet's  I  dependence  and  originality. 
Shelley  was  a  true  artist,  never  touching  anything  he  did  not 
better  and  make  more  great.  Prometheus,  to  him,  is  the  ideal 
mind  and  spirit  of  man  as  they  were  made  to  be.  The  char- 
acters in  this  drama  are  too  colossal  in  their  qualities  to  permit 
of  acting  on  the  stage.  The  poem  contains,  without  qualifica- 
tion, some  of  the  finest  lyrical  lines  that  have  ever  been  written. 
Most  of  these  wondrous  lyral  bursts  are  uttered  by  Asia,  the 
Spirit  of  Love  itself,  the  lamp  of  the  world,  the  "  very  life  of 
life."  Perhaps  the  lines  beginning  and  those  ending  the  second 
act  are  sufficient  to  mention  as  illustrative  of  this  fine  lyricism ; 
but  the  description  of  the  Earth  near  the  close  of  the  fourth 
act,  spoken  by  the  character  representing  the  Moon,  should 
also  be  read.  There  is  no  other  music  precisely  like  these 
harmonious  strains.  For  imaginative  power,  as  applied  to 
nature,  the  following  may  be  quoted  from  some  of  Asia's  lines 
in  the  second  act,  if  only  for  the  sake  of  the  last  one  : 

Methought  among  the  lawns  together 
We  wandered,  underneath  the  young  gray  dawn, 
And  multitudes  of  dense  white  fleecy  clouds 
Were  wandering  in  thick  flocks  along  the  mountains 
Shepherded  by  the  slow,  tmwilling  wind. 

The  Cenci,  its  author  hoped,  would  be  successful  upon  the  stage ; 
but  it  was  not,  chiefly  because  it  is  too  purely  poetic.  Yet  John 
Addington  Symonds,  one  of  the  biographers  of  Shelley,  calls 
it  "  the  greatest  tragedy  composed  in  English  since  the  death 
of  Shakespeare." 


2l6  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

While  Shelley  was  residing  at  Pisa  and  at  Lerici  in  Italy,  he 
wrote  The  Cloudy  To  a  Skylark,  Ode  to  the  West  Wind,  Adonais, 
Epipsychidion,  and  various  other  lyrics,  and  The  Triumph  oj 
Life.  Some  think  Shelley's  finest  work  to  be  in  his  briefer 
lyrics,  such  as  The  Cloud  and  To  a  Skylark.  Undoubtedly  they 
are  singularly  beautiful,  and  will  be  forever  popular.  But, 
as  products  of  the  imaginative  intellect,  they  do  not  stand  com- 
parison with  such  unworldly  marvels  as  Prometheus  Unbound, 
Adonais,  and  Epipsychidion.  All  critical  opinion  agrees  to-day 
that  the  first  named  of  these  three  shows  the  highest  qualities 
of  thfe  greatest  lyric  poetry  of  the  world.  The  Adonais  is  a 
lament  for  Keats,  who  had  died  in  182 1.  This  poem  claims  that 
genius  has  the  power  of  transcending  death,  —  a  claim  that 
Keats  lives,  that  Death  is  dead,  not  Keats,  that  Keats  has 
become  one  with  Nature : 

He  is  made  one  with  Nature  :  there  is  heard 
His  voice  in  all  her  music,  from  the  moan 
Of  thunder,  to  the  song  of  night's  sweet  bird ; 
He  is  a  presence  to  be  felt  and  known 
In  darkness  and  in  light,  from  herb  and  stone, 
Spreading  itself  where'er  that  Power  may  move 
Which  has  withdrawn  his  being  to  its  own ; 
Which  wields  the  world  with  never  wearied  love, 
Sustains  it  from  beneath,  and  kindles  it  above. 

He  is  a  portion  of  the  loveliness 
Which  once  he  made  more  lovely. 

The  tone  of  the  great  elegy  of  Adonais  may  be  suggested  by 
the  forty-fifth  stanza: 

The  inheritors  of  unfulfilled  renown 

Rose  from  their  thrones,  built  beyond  mortal  thought ; 

Far  in  the  Unapparent.     Chatterton 

Rose  pale,  his  solemn  agony  had  not 


THE  EARLY   NmETEENTH  CENTURY  217 

Yet  faded  from  him;   Sidney,  as  he  fought 
And  as  he  fell  and  as  he  Uved  and  loved 
Sublimely  mild,  a  Spirit  without  spot, 
Arose ;   and  Lucan,  by  his  death  approved : 
ObUvion,  as  they  rose,  shrank  like  a  thing  reproved. 

It  was  Plato  and  Dante  who,  above  all  others,  influenced 
Shelley  in  Epipsychidion.  But  Shelley  put  new  lights  into  all 
old  lanterns  that  he  used,  as  well  as  many  old  lights  into  new 
lanterns.  In  his  Epipsychidion  is  an  even  and  sustained  beauty 
of  form,  and  a  passionate  expression  of  that  love  which  is 
both  love  and  friendship.  Shelley  himself  said  of  it,  "It  is 
an  idealized  history  of  my  life  and  feelings."  In  this  poem 
he  speaks  of  Emilia  Viviani  as 

Seraph  of  Heaven !   too  gentle  to  be  human ; 
Veiling  beneath  that  radiant  form  of  Woman 
All  that  is  unsupportable  in  thee 
Of  light,  and  love,  and  immortality. 

Again,  he  says 

True  love  in  this  differs  from  gold  and  clay, 
That  to  divide  is  not  to  take  away. 
Love  is  like  understanding,  that  grows  bright, 
Gazing  on  many  truths ;   'tis  like  thy  light, 
Imagination!  .  .  . 

The  poem  is  replete  with  what  Shelley  calls  '*  flowers  of 
thought,"  shining  with  the  most  rapturous  of  sensitive  beauty. 

Shelley's  last  summer  days  were  occupied  with  writing  The 
Triumph  of  Life,  He  was  drowned  in  the  Spezzian  bay  before 
the  work  was  finished.  Strangely  enough,  this  poem  ends  with 
the  unanswered  question,  "  Then,  what  is  life?   I  cried." 

Shelley  was  an  immeasurable  genius.  His  verse  is  the  most 
nearly  perfect  illustration  of  the  definition  that  "  poetry  is 
love  talking  musically." 


2l8  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

Keats.  —  No  better  introduction  to  the  poetry  of  John 
Keats  could  be  written  than  this  description,  by  Shelley,  — 
in  his  essay  entitled  A  Defence  of  Poetry ^  —  ''Poetry  is  the 
record  of  the  best  and  happiest  monrents  of  the  happiest 
and  best  minds."  For  John  Keats,  though  suffering  from 
what  was  in  his  day  thought  to  be  an  incurable  disease, 
tuberculosis,  and  dying  from  it  at  the  age  of  twenty-four, 
possessed  one  of  the  happiest  and  best  minds  that  have  ever 
blessed  this  fair  earth.  One  who  sentimentally  weeps  over 
Keats  as  a  languishing,  consumptive  martyr,  too  sensitive  to 
endure  the  criticism  of  even  a  magazine  reviewer,  should  read 
the  essay  on  Keats  by  James  Russell  Lowell.  He  is  likely  to 
be  brought  up-standing  at  once  by  the  statement,  positively 
correct,  that  Keats  "  was  a  youth  of  energy  and  purpose." 

Keats  was  born  in  1795,  the  son  of  a  livery-stable  keeper, 
but  one  who  was  well-to-do.  The  boy  was  sent  to  a  private 
school,  and,  when  fifteen  years  of  age,  was  apprenticed  to 
a  surgeon.  He  received  what  was,  for  his  day,  a  good  medi- 
cal training  and  even  practiced  his  profession  until  181 7,  at 
which  time  his  passion  for  literature  led  him  to  abandon  every 
pursuit  except  the  production  of  poetry.  These  brief  facts 
of  his  life  should  be  known,  to  correct  the  widespread  mis- 
conception concerning  his  youth.  He  died  in  Italy  in  182 1, 
so  that  his  productive  period  was  but  four  years,  from  181 7 
to  182 1,  —  lamentably  brief.  He  spoke  of  his  name  as  "  writ 
in  water."  "  Posterity  has  agreed  with  him  that  it  is  —  but 
in  the  Water  of  Life."  1 

Keats  said,  "  There  are  three  things  to  rejoice  in  in  this  age." 

Those  three  were  Hazlitt,  Wordsworth's  Excursion,  and  the 

pictures  of  Benjamin  Robert  Haydon.     It  was  the  broad  and 

generous  culture,  and  the  depth  of  taste  of  Hazlitt  that  attracted 

1  Saintsbury,  A  History  of  Nineteenth  Century  Literature,  p.  87. 


THE  EARLY  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  219 

Keats.  It  was  the  strong  individuality,  the  reflection  of  the 
personal  moods  of  his  own  nature,  the  power  of  intimate  ob- 
servation reflected  in  Wordsworth's  poetry,  that  made  him 
seem  so  worthy  to  be  admired.  It  was  Haydon's  intense  en- 
thusiasm for  ancient  Greek  sculpture  that  led  Keats  to  deep  in- 
terest in  things  antique,  and  particularly  in  the  beauty  of 
ancient  sculpture.  Keats  was  almost  too  young  to  succeed  in 
passing  beyond  his  masters.  Leigh  Hunt  was,  however,  even 
more  of  a  master  to  Keats  than  the  three  whom  Keats  named ; 
and  rather  an  unfortunate  mastery  that  of  Hunt  was,  for  the 
overdaintiness  and  luxuriousness  of  his  fancy  was  so  pleasing 
to  Keats  that  a  large  share  of  Keats's  own  verse  is  too  heavily 
laden  with  the  same  qualities.  Yet  Hunt  had  begun  to  use  the 
old  heroic  couplet  verse  in  a  free  rhythm,  supple  in  movement, 
lithe  and  lilting  in  such  way  as  the  eighteenth-century  hinged 
and  jointed  heroic  couplet  could  never  be.  Keats  imitated 
Hunt  in  this,  but  passed  far  beyond  him  in  the  free  modulation 
which  he  was  able  to  give  to  the  couplet.  There  is  no  grace  in 
even  Pope's  couplet  like  that  in  the  following  from  the  begin- 
ning of  Keats's  Endymion : 

A  thing  of  beauty  is  a  joy  forever : 

Its  loveliness  increases ;  it  will  never 

Pass  into  nothingness ;   but  still  will  keep 

A  bower  quiet  for  us,  and  a  sleep 

Full  of  sweet  dreams,  of  health,  and  quiet  breathing. 

And  yet,  popular  as  these  lines  are,  they  are  by  no  means  to 
be  thought  of  as  among  Keats's  best.  His  poetry,  even  though 
it  does  reveal  many  traces  of  the  work  of  others,  was  epoch- 
making,  for  from  his  time  on  it  was  possible  for  a  poet  to  wed 
music  and  meaning  without  meeting  the  frown  of  any  one  who 
was  critical.  In  fact,  it  may  be  said  that  Keats  more  than  any 
other  poet  of  the  era  created  the  taste  for  rich  melody  in  verse. 


220  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

However  strongly  Keats  was  under  the  spell  of  this  or  that 
old  and  much-used  subject  matter,  there  is  much  that  is  new 
and  unexpected  in  his  work.  It  is  acknowledged  that  his  in- 
fluence upon  writers  since  his  death  has  been  incomparably 
greater  than  all  influences  of  the  past  upon  him,  though  it  has 
been  in  matters  of  form,  not  in  ideas,  that  he  has  reappeared 
to  a  great  extent  in  those  who  have  followed  him.  ''  Words- 
worth has  influenced  most  the  ideas  of  succeeding  poets,  Keats 
their  forms,"  said  Lowell.  A  seventeenth-century  writer  once 
defined  poetry  as  "  the  dreams  of  them  that  are  awake."  Keats 
was  as  much  a  dreamer  as  Coleridge,  but  the  work  of  Keats, 
unlike  that  of  Coleridge,  could  never  have  been  done  by  one  who 
was  not  thoroughly  conscious  of  every  step  taken  in  its  doing. 
A  discriminating  criticism  of  Keats  was  this  made  by  Lowell, 
that  Keats  was  over-languaged,  but,  the  critic  added,  in  that 
was  implied  the  possibility  of  falling  back  to  the  perfect  mean 
of  diction.  "It  is  only  by  the  rich  that  the  costly  plainness, 
which  at  once  satisfies  the  taste  and  the  imagination,  is  attain- 
able." 

Keats  never  in  his  short  career  quite  fully  passed  beyond  the 
influence  of  Leigh  Hunt  and  others  like  him,  in  their  familiar, 
rather  over-sentimental  way  of  looking  at  and  handling  poetic 
things,  but  that  influence  is  easily  seen  only  in  the  first  volume 
of  his  poems,  published  in  1817.  There  were  thirty  poems  in 
that  first  volume,  eighteen  of  them  being  sonnets,  of  which 
the  most  famous  is  the  one  entitled  On  First  Looking  into  Chap- 
man^s  Homer,  quoted  in  this  book  on  page  56.  These  poems 
show  at  once  the  fact  that  the  poet  looked  at  nature  in  detail, 
and  that  each  exquisite  detail  was  to  him  as  if  it  had  just  been 
seen  for  the  first  time.  There  is  more  of  mere  prettiness  in  the 
poem,  without  title,  beginning  "  I  stood  tip-toe  upon  a  little 
hill,"  than  in  any  other  one  of  these  early  effusions: 


THE   EARLY  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  221 

A  little  noiseless  noise  among  the  leaves, 
Born  of  the  very  sigh  that  silence  heaves. 

Here  are  sweet  peas,  on  tjp-toe  for  a  flight ; 

With  wings  of  gentle  flush  o'er  delicate  white, 

And  taper  fingers  catching  at  all  things, 

To  bind  them  all  about  with  tiny  rings. 

Were  I  in  such  a  place,  I  sure  should  pray 

That  nought  less  sweet,  might  call  my  thoughts  away, 

Than  the  soft  rustle  of  a  maiden's  gown 

Fanning  away  the  dandelion's  down ; 

Than  the  light  music  of  her  nimble  toes 

Patting  against  the  sorrel  as  she  goes. 

How  she  would  start,  and  blush,  thus  to  be  caught 
Playing  in  all  her  innocence  of  thought. 

Second,  came  Endymion.  Wordsworth  called  it  "  a  pretty- 
piece  of  paganism."  And  so  it  is.  Here  the  imaginative  wealth 
of  the  mind  of  Keats  began  to  reveal  itself,  and  a  sort  of  ^'  faery 
voyage  after  beauty  "  is  the  result.  Still  this  poem  is  not  the 
languishing  thing  that  such  a  description  might  suggest.  The 
subject  is  Greek;  and  surely  the  Greeks  were  virile  enough. 
And,  too,  the  rich  red  English  blood  can  be  traced  through  the 
old  Greek  veins  which  form  the  texture  of  the  poem.  The 
sensations  described  are  such  as  one  would  feel  on  English  soil. 
There  is  even  a  little  psychology  in  the  poem  of  Endymion, 
though  it  is  put  in  language  that  is  far  from  analytical;  as, 
for  instance. 

How  sickening,  how  dark  the  dreadful  leisure 
Of  weary  days,  made  deeper  exquisite 
By  a  foreknowledge  of  unslumbrous  night ! 

We  still  see  the  somewhat  falsely  distorted  writing  and  think- 
ing of  the  school  of  Hunt  surviving  in  these  lines. 
In  April,  1818,  Keats  wrote  in  one  of  his  letters,  "  I  have 


222  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

been  hovering  for  some  time  between  an  exquisite  sense  of  the 
luxurious  and  a  love  of  philosophy."  And  again,  "  I  find  there 
is  no  worthy  pursuit  but  the  idea  of  doing  some  good  to  the 
world."  The  poet,  now,  is  beginning  to  realize  that  besides  the 
passion  for  beauty  there  is,  as  something  of  worth,  the  desire 
to  think  and  to  do.  In  June  of  that  year  he  finished  his  poem 
entitled  Isabella;  or  The  Pot  of  Basil,  which  has  inspired  more 
than  one  eminent  painter  to  superb  brush  work ;  in  this  poem 
Keats  at  least  inspired  others  to  do,  and  the  production  of  the 
poem  itself  was  also  a  deed  of  note.  "  Poetry  must  surprise  by 
a  fine  excess,"  said  Keats.  It  does  in  Isabella.  There  is  still 
too  much,  as  in  the  earlier  poems,  of  material  with  sense  appeal 
alone ;  for,  while  the  poem  is  intended  to  tell  a  story,  the  action 
is  embarrassed  by  the  richness  of  description.  It  is  not  Greek 
veins  now  so  much  as  medieval  veins  that  Keats  is  flushing 
with  blood  of  the  English  heart,  as  stanzas  XXXV  and  XLI 
especially  disclose,  and  even  more  especially  stanza  XXXIX. 
In  this  poem  perfection  of  form  is  much  more  conspicuous  than 
in  the  Endymion  and  the  poems  of  1817. 

In  the  preface  to  Endymion^  Keats  had  said  that  he  wished  once 
again  after  that  poem  to  touch  upon  the  mythology  of  Greece 
before  he  should  bid  it  farewell.  This  wish  found  fulfillment  in 
Hyperion,  which  he  began  to  write  in  August,  181 8,  after  four 
months  of  tramping  in  the  Scotch  Highlands.  Keats  was  now 
strongly  under  the  spell  of  Milton,  a  very  different  spell  from 
that  exercised  by  Leigh  Hunt.  He  strove  in  Hyperion  to  emu- 
late the  majesty  of  the  style  of  Paradise  Lost.  Had  he  lived 
longer  and  worked  for  years  upon  this  poem,  finishing  the  ten 
books  projected,  instead  of  breaking  off  in  the  middle  of  the 
third  book,  he  might  have  mastered  that  style.  Keats's  attempt 
is  one  of  the  best  of  modern  ones  to  handle  the  ancient  myth 
of  the  struggle  between  the  warring  powers  of  heaven.    He 


THE  EARLY  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  223 

pictures  the  struggle  in  which  Jove  overthrew  Saturn.  But 
with  him  the  struggle  is  very  modern,  purely  symbolistic  of  the 
subduing  of  the  universe  by  beauty, 

for  'tis  the  eternal  law 
That  first  in  beauty  should  be  first  in  might. 

From  Hyperion  Keats  turned  aside,  beginning  in  January, 
1819,  to  write  a  small  group  of  poems,  and  by  the  fall  of  that 
year  completed  The  Eve  of  St.  Agnes,  Lamia,  six  odes,  and  La 
Belle  Dame  Sans  Merci,  —  the  last  named  and  one  of  the  odes, 
the  Ode  on  a  Grecian  Urn,  deserving  to  be  thought  of  in  a 
group  by  themselves  because  they  are  the  two  separate  highest 
points  to  which  his  poetry  rose.  In  The  Eve  of  St.  Agnes  the 
author  quite  evidently  has  learned  the  art  of  story-telling.  Here 
at  last  by  him,  unity  of  interest  is  attained  in  narrative.  Few 
who  seek  for  the  permanent  pleasure  which  exquisite  poetry  gives 
do  not  know  the  first  three  stanzas  of  this  poem.  Few  there 
are  who  do  not  like  often  to  think  of  the  fifteenth  stanza  and 
*'  Madeline  asleep  in  Lap  of  legends  old,"  and  the  lovely  twenty- 
fifth  stanza,  which  is  a  tone-color  poem  almost  by  itself.  Then, 
there  is  nowhere  else  to  be  found  a  catalogue  of  things  which 
appeal  to  the  physical  taste,  but  which  is  so  little  filled  with  the 
grossness  of  mere  palate  tickling,  as  stanza  XXX.  In  stanza 
XXXIII  we  have  a  hint  of  the  Belle  Dame  which  was  to  come. 
The  richly  and  felicitously  ornamented  Eve  of  St.  Agnes  is  in 
its  simple  romanticism  the  tribute  to  Keats's  study  of  Chatter- 
ton,  though  it  was  the  Endymion  which  he  had  dedicated  to 
Chatterton.  In  one  poem  of  this  group,  the  Ode  to  a  Nightingale, 
there  are  struck  powerful  musical  tones  to  which  the  poet  had 
not  risen  before,  as 

Thou  wast  not  bom  for  death,  Immortal  Bird ! 
No  hungry  generations  tread  thee  down. 


224  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

The  ode  To  Autumn  is  an  excellent  corrective  to  Bryant's 
popular  but  over-melancholy  poem  on  the  same  season.  One 
who  expects  to  read  Alfred  Noyes's  Tales  o]  the  Mermaid  Inn 
should  not  fail  to  precede  that  reading  with  Keats's  Lines  on 
the  Mermaid  Tavern. 

In  a  separate  group,  as  we  have  suggested,  may  well  be  placed 
the  Ode  on  a  Grecian  Urn  and  La  Belle  Dame  Sans  Merci. 
The  first  is  the  poet's  reconstruction  of  the  Greek  belief  that 
art's  product  is  eternal,  or  that  the  most  truthful,  or  the  only 
truthful,  of  all  things  is  beauty.  In  this  poem  there  is  ample 
evidence  that  we  are  still  in  the  renaissance  period  (even  though 
it  is  not  technically  so  called),  for  no  product  of  the  fifteenth, 
sixteenth,  or  seventeenth  century,  in  any  country,  more  ade- 
quately approaches  a  real  revival  of  the  ancient  culture  and  tone 
of  spirit  of  old  Greece.  It  is  because  Keats  was  the  author  of 
such  a  poem  as  this  that  one  hundred  years  of  poetry  and  criti- 
cism have  paid  homage  to  this  youth  as  a  master  of  those  who 
write.  Traces  of  another  master,  Wordsworth,  may  be  found 
in  this  poem,  which  serves  to  demonstrate  that  the  creative 
spirit  is  not  confined  to  the  work  of  any  one  man,  but  runs  un- 
brokenly  through  them  all.  In  La  Belle  Dame  Sans  Merci  there 
is  added  to  the  old-time  and  rather  childish  romanticism  of 
Chatterton,  the  mystic  weirdness  of  Coleridge;  yet  nothing  is 
more  spontaneous  than  the  \^izardry  of  these  perfect  lines,  these 
pictures  impossible  to  any  other  medium  of  painting  than  poetry. 
To  describe  by  refraining  from  description,  to  tell  by  refusing 
to  tell,  here  reaches  its  highest  altitude. 

Only  one  more  thing  can  be  mentioned,  his  last  verses,  written 
in  September,  1820,  —  his  period  of  life  was  so  short  that  the 
dates  even  by  months  are  worth  sacredly  remembering.  The 
sonnets  of  Keats  are  very  uneven  in  quality,  but  the  last 
one  of  all — without  title — beginning  "Bright  star  I  would  I 


THE  EARLY  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  22^ 

were  steadfast  as  thou  art .  .  .  "  is  among  the  finest,  among  the 
best.  The  power  to  sing  (no  poet  had  better  power  than  he 
at  times),  the  instinct  for  consonance  of  sense  with  sound, 
imagination  not  bounded  by  time  or  measurable  space,  most 
human  love,  —  these  survive  and  find  richly  full  expression  in 
"  Bright  star!  would  I  were  steadfast  as  thou  art .  .  .  "  and  on 
until  the  last  line,  "  And  so  live  ever ...  or  else  swoon  to  death." 

2.    The  Great  Novelists 

Jane  Austen,  realist.  —  Jane  Austen  and  Sir  Walter  Scott 
were  the  two  great  novelists  of  this  period.  Sir  Walter  was 
the  romancer,  the  Wizard  of  the  North;  but  Miss  Austen 
was  as  wonderful  in  her  way  as  he  in  his.  Her  way  was  that 
of  the  sincere  and  gifted  realist,  rendering  ordinary  life  inter- 
esting because  she  saw  its  details  clearly  and  then  in  a  plain 
and  simple  manner  told  what  she  saw.  She  still  stands  as 
the  greatest  of  women  novelists,  superior  to  George  Eliot 
or  Charlotte  Bronte.  She  was  entirely  human,  frankly  and 
hopefully  sympathetic.  She  showed  a  great  simplicity  in  her 
work  because  she  was  deeply  cultured.  Her  field  was  narrow, 
but  she  knew  it  thoroughly,  and  worked  upon  it  "  with  the  skill 
of  the  worker  in  ivory."  Macaulay  said  of  her,  in  his  rather 
exaggerated  way,  that  Shakespeare  is  the  only  writer  with  whom 
she  can  be  compared.  She  undoubtedly  seems  to  have  pos- 
sessed the  faculty  of  knowing  everything,  as  Shakespeare  did, 
and  to  have  had  the  skill  to  say  exactly  the  thing  that  must  be 
said.  To  most  readers,  Jane  Austen  seems  thoroughly  to  have 
been  what  is  called  objective;  that  is,  fully  in  control  of  herself 
and  of  the  characters  of  whom  she  wrote,  never  obtruding  her 
own  sentiments  or  opinions  regarding  them.  But  she  was  not 
quite  that,  for  her  own  satiric  tone  of  thought  pervaded 
everything  she  wrote.  Yet  we  feel  that  she  has  adhered  in 
Q 


226  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

minutest  detail  to  the  truth  of  the  daily  life  which  she  related. 
Her  satire  is  never  bitter,  always  pleasant,  though  seriously 
penetrating  to  the  inner  meaning  of  what  she  depicts ;  as  the 
superficial,  though  equally  exact  realist,  Richardson,  had  never 
been  able  to  do,  because  he  was  blinded  by  sentiment. 

Jane  Austen's  six  books  were  written  between  1796  and 
1810,  in  the  halcyon  days  of  the  poets  Wordsworth  and 
Coleridge,  but  were  not  published  until  between  181 1  and 
1 81 8,  thus  overlapping  the  wonderful  early  days  of  Scott's 
success.  Her  books  are:  Sense  and  Sensibility^  Pride  and 
Prejudice,  Mansfield  Park,  Emma,  Northanger  Abbey,  and 
Persuasion.  It  is  not  the  passing  show  of  life  that  they  picture, 
but  ordinary  life  that  is  just  as  existent  to-day  as  in  her  own  day, 
one  hundred  years  ago,  and  life  that,  in  its  main  features,  bids 
fair  to  continue  endlessly.  Therefore  it  seems  that  she  is  one 
who  will  always  find  an  audience  of  readers.  Northanger 
Abbey  is  her  criticism  of  the  Gothic  romance,  a  very  subtle, 
yet  mild  burlesque  of  its  false  heroicism.  Sense  and  Sensibility 
is  an  indictment  of  the  sentimentalists ;  and  the  sentimental 
character  in  her  story  is  thoroughly  cured  of  its  sentimentalism 
in  the  end.  Pride  and  Prejudice  is  the  best  and  the  most  read 
of  all  the  six.  The  comparison  of  it  with  a  Shakespearean 
comedy  is  very  fitting.  Its  humor  is  almost  as  keen,  and 
it  has  all  the  technique  of  a  finely  constructed  drama.  In  this 
book  its  author  has  illustrated  the  statement  of  Rodin,  the 
present-day  sculptor,  that  "  All  art  is  founded  on  mathematics ; 
only,  the  artist  must  not  let  his  mathematics  grow  cold."  The 
book  is  as  true  in  its  details  and  as  logical  in  its  architectural 
contruction  as  a  demonstration  in  geometry,  yet  Jane  Austen 
herself  cannot  be  separated  from  it. 

Sir  Walter  Scott,  romanticist.  —  Sir  Walter  Scott,  the  inspirer 
of  Victor  Hugo  and  Alexander  Dumas  in  France,  of  Caballero  in 


Abbotsford,  Sir  Walter  Scott's  Hom.e 


•  THE  EARLY  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  227 

Spain,  of  Fouque  in  Germany,  of  Manzoni  in  Italy,  and  of  Tolstoi 
in  Russia,  was  forty-three  years  old  when  his  first  novel  was  com- 
pleted. That  first  novel  was  Waverley.  It  came  from  the  press 
in  1814.  It  was  Scott's  intention,  when  he  began  the  Waverley 
novels,  to  write  of  his  own  day  and  country,  like  Henry  Field- 
ing, but  he  quickly  gave  up  that  intention  and  determined  to 
entertain  by  writing  tales  of  other  times,  and,  soon,  even  of 
other  lands,  than  his  own.  To  do  this  was  a  hard  task,  for  in 
the  early  nineteenth  century  there  was  little  knowledge  of  history 
and  less  interest  in  it.  This  lack  of  knowledge  and  this  lack 
of  interest  Scott  had  to  break  down,  and  he  did  so.  He  was  able 
to  do  this  because  he  was  a  great  man,  and  because  he  wrote  his 
great  romantic  heart  right  into  his  characters.  He  communi- 
cated his  own  life  to  them,  though  he  was  unable,  as  Jane  Austen 
was  able,  to  make  all  his  characters  vitally  act.  It  was  Sir 
Walter  doing  and  speaking  through  most  of  his  characters  that 
attracted  and  held  the  reading  world  of  a  century  ago,  and  does 
so  still,  in  at  least  a  third  of  his  twenty-nine  novels. 

The  twenty-nine  novels  easily  fall  into  three  groups,  if  we 
look  at  the  subject  matter  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  combina- 
tion of  time  principle  and  geographic  principle,  for  up  to  about 
1 81 9  Scott  wrote  chiefly  (i)  of  Scotland  in  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries,  then  (2)  until  about  1823  of  England  and 
the  middle  ages,  when  (3)  in  Quentin  Durward  he  turned  to  the 
continent  of  Europe  for  subject  matter,  Guy  Mannering  and 
The  Antiquary  are  considered  by  most  critical  readers  to-day 
the  best  of  the  twenty-nine  books,  though  many  votes  are 
cast  for  Old  Mortality,  The  Abbot,  The  Bride  of  Lammermoor, 
and  the  ever  popular  Ivanhoe. 

The  first  group  of  the  novels  includes  Waverley,  Guy  Manner- 
ing, The  Antiquary,  The  Black  Dwarf,  Old  Mortality,  Rob  Roy, 
The  Heart  of  Midlothian,  The  Bride  of  Lammermoor,  and  The 


228  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

Legend  of  Montrose.  As  is  the  usual  fact,  the  greatest  of  this 
author's  works  came  among  the  earlier  ones.  Having  created 
his  own  public  among  readers,  an  author  is  expected  to  satisfy 
their  hunger  for  more  works  of  the  same  kind,  but  it  is  seldom 
that  he  can  rise  again  to  the  heights  to  which  he  rose  when  he 
was  writing  to  please  himself  rather  than  the  public.  Waverley 
continues  to  reflect  the  interest  in  tales  of  wonder  which  had 
absorbed  Scott  during  his  period  of  poetry.  Guy  Mannering, 
or  the  Astrologer  is  a  masterpiece  because  of  its  richly  humorous 
portrayal  of  character.  The  Antiquary  is  like  Guy  Mannering 
in  its  creation  of  the  characters  Oldbuck  and  Ochiltree.  It 
should  be  noticed  that  these  two  novels  were  not  historical,  as 
Waverley  had  attempted  to  be.  The  Black  Dwarf  is  of  less  im- 
portance than  any  of  the  three  novels  preceding  it ;  but  it  was 
quickly  followed  by  the  famous  Old  Mortality.  This  book  and 
Quentin  Durward,  to  be  mentioned  again  in  the  third  group,  were 
the  foundations  of  the  so-called  historical  novel.  Rob  Roy  was  the 
one  of  Scott's  books  which  more  than  any  other  helped  finally  to 
unite  the  Highlands  and  the  Lowlands  of  Scotland  in  sympathetic 
friendliness  after  centuries  of  hostility.  The  Heart  of  Midlothian 
is  the  story  of  Jeanie  Deans,  the  finest  of  Scott's  women 
characters.  Following  this  came  The  Bride  of  Lammermoor^ 
Scott's  really  great  novel  among  his  trials  at  profound  tragedy, 
often  compared  with  Romeo  and  Juliet  because  of  the  tragedy 
centering  about  the  love  motive,  and  truly  worthy  to  be  com- 
pared, in  its  somberness  and  dreadful  gloom,  with  Shakespeare's 
King  Lear  or  Balzac's  Phre  Goriot.  The  Legend  of  Montrose 
ends  this  first  group. 

The  second  group  consists  of  Ivanhoe,  The  Monastery,  The 
Abboty  Kenilworthy  The  Pirate^  The  Fortunes  of  Nigel,  and 
Peveril  of  the  Peak.  Ivanhoe  is  one  of  the  best  of  all  plot-novels, 
perhaps  less  spontaneously  created,  therefore,  than  many  of  the 


THE  EARLY  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  229 

rest  by  Scott.  Doubtless  it  has  been  read  by  more  people  than 
any  of  his  others.  The  Monastery  and  The  Ahbot  are  glorious 
books.  They  deal  with  the  fascinating  story  of  Mary  Queen 
of  Scots,  and  yet  are  not  quite  so  sympathetic  with  the  life  of 
her  century  as  are  the  books  which  deal  with  the  life  of  the  two 
centuries  following.  Kenilworth  presents  many  celebrated 
pictures  of  Queen  Elizabeth  and  her  courtiers.  The  Pirate 
is  Scott's  sea  story.  The  Fortunes  of  Nigel  contains  what  is 
usually  acknowledged  to  be  Sir  Walter's  finest  historical  por- 
trait, that  of  James  VI  of  Scotland  and  I  of  England.  The  in- 
consistencies of  life  were  not  quite  so  captivating  to  Scott  as 
to  Jane  Austen,  but  in  the  character  of  King  James  they  are 
handled  at  their  richest  and  best,  —  or  worst.  Peveril  of  the 
Peak  is  very  vigorous  and  vivacious  in  many  of  its  scenes,  yet 
was  not  so  favorably  received  by  its  readers  as  any  of  the 
stories  which  had  preceded  it,  because  in  it  the  author  failed 
to  sustain  the  reputation  for  "  naturalism  "  which  he  had  so 
firmly  established. 

The  third  group,  beginning  in  1823,  comprises  Quentin  Dur- 
ward,  St.  Ronan's  Well,  Redgauntlet,  The  Betrothed,  The  Talis- 
man, Woodstock,  The  Highland  Widow,  The  Two  Drovers,  The 
Surgeon'' s  Daughter,  The  Fair  Maid  of  Perth,  Anne  of  Geierstein, 
Count  Robert  of  Paris,  and  Castle  Dangerous.  Quentin  Durward, 
along  with  Old  Mortality  (in  the  first  group) ,  is  to  be  considered 
as  forever  assuring  in  fiction  the  place  of  the  historical  novel. 
It  carries  its  readers  across  the  channel,  and  enters  a  new  field 
for  Scott,  that  of  a  foreign  land.  The  scene  is  laid  in  France 
at  the  court  of  Louis  XI.  The  sensation  the  book  created  in 
Paris  was  as  big  as  that  created  by  Waverley  in  Edinburgh  and 
by  Ivanhoe  (an  English  "  Scotch-novel  ")  in  London.  Goethe, 
at  Weimar,  said,  "  All  is  great  in  the  Waverley  novels ;  material, 
effect,  characters,  execution."    St.  Ronan^s  Well  was  a  novel  of 


230  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

society.  In  it  we  pass  from  battle  fields  and  courts  to  tea- 
tables.  Balzac  thought  it  Scott's  most  finished  production. 
But,  even  so,  Scott  could  not  describe  the  movements,  feelings, 
and  characters  of  ordinary  life  as  Jane  Austen  had  succeeded  in 
describing  them.  He  did  not  try  it  again.  Into  his  next  book, 
Redgauntlet,  Scott  put  more  of  the  real  personal  experiences 
of  his  own  life  than  into  any  other.  This  novel  would  be 
eminently  worth  while  if  only  for  '*  Wandering  Willie's  Tale," 
an  interesting  short-story  which  is  inserted  within  it.  The 
Betrothed  and  The  Talisman  make  up  a  pair  of  novels  which 
included  what  at  the  t;ime  of  their  publication  were  called  "  Tales 
of  the  Crusaders."  The  Betrothed  is  not  a  first-rate  tale,  if 
we  take  the  average  of  its  writer's  work  as  the  standard  for 
judging.  But  The  Talisman  is  one  of  the  most  brilliant  books 
ever  written.  Here  Richard,  the  Lion-hearted,  appears  again, 
along  with  his  equally  noble  friend  and  enemy,  the  Mohammedan 
Saladin,  each  of  whom  every  boyish  heart,  whether  young  or  old, 
delights  to  honor.  Woodstock  is  the  last  of  these  novels  which 
can  be  counted  among  those  of  the  first  rank.  The  treatment 
of  Oliver  Cromwell  and  of  Charles  II  in  this  book,  while  rather 
too  generous  to  the  historical  facts  in  the  case  of  each,  has  de- 
lighted and  gained  the  admiration  of  readers  without  number. 
The  Highland  Widow,  The  Two  Drovers,  and  The  Surgeon's 
Daughter  were  included  in  the  first  series  of  Chronicles  of  the  Canon- 
gate;  The  Fair  Maid  of  Perth  forming  the  second  series.  The 
first  two  are  rather  inferior  works,  but  the  third.  The  Surgeon^s 
Daughter,  has  allured  some  readers  to  think  it  among  the  wiz- 
ard's best.  Both  of  the  series  of  the  Chronicles  of  the  Canongatej 
and  Anne  of  Geierstein,  Count  Robert  of  Paris,  and  Castle  Danger- 
ous were  written  after  Scott's  mind  and  hand  had  been  weakened 
by  the  terrible  blow  of  financial  ruin  which  left  him  a  debtor 
for  over  half  a  million  dollars.     It  was  a  terrible  blow,  both  be- 


THE  EARLY   NINETEENTH  CENTURY  231 

cause  Scott  had  implicitly  trusted  the  publishers  with  whom  he 
had  gone  into  partnership  and  who  brought  this  ruin  upon  him, 
and  because  he  was  fond  of  wealth.  Lockhart  rightly  explains 
this  fondness  for  wealth  as  being  due  to  the  imagination  of 
Scott,  which  loved  to  satisfy  itself  in  the  magnificence  which 
wealth  could  bring  about  him.  The  Fair  Maid  of  Perth  and 
Anne  of  Geier stein  are  excellent  stories,  containing  many  lively 
scenes  almost  as  brilliantly  various  and  interesting  as  those  in 
the  earlier  novels,  yet  they  show  that  the  darkening  shadows  of 
physical  and  mental  ill  health  were  creeping  upon  the  devoted 
author.  The  last  two  books.  Count  Robert  of  Paris  and  Castle 
Dangerous,  might  better  never  have  been  written.  They  were 
wrung  out  of  his  tired  brain  in  1 831,  and  Sir  Walter  died  in  1832. 
While  Scott  was  a  great  romancer,  he  differed  from  the  eight- 
eenth-century romanticists  (i)  in  that  he  was  a  superb  humorist 
and  (2)  in  that  his  work  was  realistic.  He  does  deal  with  the 
past  chiefly,  but  it  is  the  actions  of  men  that  illustrate  permanent 
human  nature  which  interested  him  in  the  past.  To  him  the 
past  was  not  unlike  the  present;  it  was  himself  back  there. 
Hence  he  wrote  realistically  to  life  as  it  is  now,  even  more 
than  realistically  to  life  as  it  had  been  then.  He  was  like  the 
eighteenth-century  romanticists  in  a  love  of  the  picturesque, 
of  high  color,  and  of  strange  contrasts.  In  his  picturing  of 
life  in  richly  colored  circumstances  he  was  a  romanticist.  In 
all  he  showed  a  colossal  strength.  Possibly,  taken  all  in  all, 
he  still  remains  as  the  greatest  of  all  novelists,  even  though  an 
individual  work  by  one  or  another  novelist,  such  as  Tom  Jones 
by  Henry  Fielding,  or  Henry  Esmond  by  Thackeray,  may  be 
better  than  any  one  of  his ;  and  if  it  were  not  for  the  too  lengthy 
historical  discussions  with  which  several  of  his  novels  begin, 
doubtless  he  would  be  read  almost  as  much  to-day  as  he  ever 
has  been. 


232  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

III.  The  Lesser  Writers  of  the  Period 

Division.  —  The  secondary  literary  product  of  this  period, 
that  is,  the  work  other  than  the  poetry  of  Coleridge,  Words- 
worth, Scott,  Byron,  Shelley,  and  Keats,  and  other  than  the 
novels  of  Jane  Austen  and  Scott,  may  be  divided  into  the  work 
of  journalists,  poets,  historians,  essayists,  and  minor  novelists. 
Some  of  it  may  be  dealt  with  in  a  very  summary  way,  not  be- 
cause it  was  unimportant,  but  because  it  does  not  need  such 
ample  attention  in  an  age  so  crowded  with  better  literary  matter. 

Journalism.  —  This  was  the  era  of  the  founding  of  the  great 
journals,  the  Edinburgh  Review^  the  Quarterly  Review,  and 
Blackwood'' s  Magazine,  1802,  1809,  181 7,  respectively.  The 
most  important  editor  of  the  first  was  the  critic,  Francis  Jeffrey ; 
of  the  second  was  the  biographer  of  Burns  and  of  Sir  Walter 
Scott,  John  G.  Lockhart ;  and  of  the  third  was  the  Edinburgh 
professor,  John  Wilson,  who  usually  wrote  under  the  pen-name 
of  "  Christopher  North."  Thomas  De  Quincey  was  a  distin- 
guished contributor  to  these  magazines.  When  we  come  to  the 
essayists,  we  shall  find  him  more  than  a  mere  journalist.  The 
influential  editors  and  encyclopedists,  William  and  Robert 
Chambers  and  Charles  Knight,  also  did  their  work  within  this 
period. 

The  lesser  poetry.  —  Of  the  lesser  poets,  Southey  is  to-day 
better  known  because  of  his  association  with  Coleridge  and 
because  of  his  prose  Life  of  Nelson ,  than  for  any  of  his  verse, 
excepting  for  the  very  popular,  but  not  very  poetic,  How  the 
Water  Comes  Down  at  Lodore,  which  has  been  delightfully 
parodied  by  a  more  minor  poet,  Pennell,  in  How  the  Daughters 
Come  Down  to  Dunoon.  Southey  attempted  a  grand  epic, 
entitled  Roderick,  the  Last  of  the  Goths.  It  is  a  highly  pictorial 
poem,  but  with  not  enough  of  shifting  of  scene  and  of  variety 


THE   EARLY   NINETEENTH   CENTURY  233 

of  incident,  not  enough  even  of  probability  or  of  general  "  human 
interest,"  to  be  a  satisfactory  epic. 

Another  minor  poet  was  Samuel  Rogers,  who  kad  printed  his 
Pleasures  of  Memory  as  early  as  1792.  His  Italy  was  first 
published  in  1822.  The  Italy  in  the  edition  of  1830  was  illus- 
trated by  J.  M.  W.  Turner,  the  world's  greatest  landscape 
painter,  and  is  perhaps  better  known  for  his  illustrations  than 
for  the  verses  of  Rogers.  Leigh  Hunt  was  both  poet  and  essay- 
ist. His  Abou  Ben  Adhem  is  recited  everywhere;  but  his 
drama.  The  Story  of  Rimini,  founded  upon  the  story  of  Paola 
and  Francesca  as  told  by  Dante,  is  the  most  finished  work 
he  produced.  Mrs.  Felicia  Hemans  belongs  to  this  era. 
''  The  boy  stood  on  the  burning  deck  "  and  ''  The  breaking 
waves  dashed  high "  are  lines  beginning  two  of  her  poems 
very  familiar  to  both  English  and  American  children.  An 
even  much  more  popular  poetess,  probably  because  she  was 
even  more  romantic,  was  "  L.  E.  L."  or  Letitia  E.  Landon. 
The  Golden  Violet  is  representative  of  her  work.  The  leader 
of  the  school  of  wits  and  punsters  in  verse  was  Thomas 
Hood.  No  man  was  more  clever  at  giving  "  the  sinister  wink 
with  the  dexter  eye  "  than  Hood.  He  was  the  author  of  some 
sentimental  verse  that,  despite  its  sentimentality,  has  been 
useful  in  helping  others  to  express  right  emotions;  for  ex- 
ample, such  poems  as  The  Bridge  of  Sighs  and  The  Song  of 
the  Shirt.  Thomas  Campbell  continued  his  "  classical " 
poetic  style  begun  in  Pleasures  of  Hope,  1799,  by  writing  Ger- 
trude  of  Wyoming,  published  in  1809.  But  he  will  be  known 
forever  for  the  poems  which  he  wrote  after  he  had  surrendered 
to  the  more  stirring  elements  of  the  romantic  movement.  A 
few  of  those  poems  are  Lord  Ullin^s  Daughter,  Ye  Mariners  of 
England,  Battle  of  the  Baltic,  Lochiel,  and  Hohenlinden. 

Tom  Moore's  Lalla  Rookh  was  printed  in  181 7.    It  is  a  ro- 


234  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

mance  with  an  oriental  setting,  and  has  been  popular  for  nearly 
the  century  which  has  passed  since  its  publication.  Moore  is 
sometimes  saidito  have  done  for  Ireland  in  his  songs  what  Burns 
did  for  Scotland ;  but  the  difficulty  that  stands  in  the  way  of 
accepting  that  statement  is  that  Moore's  Irish  Melodies  are 
lacking  in  "  Irishism."  They  are  excellent  poems,  in  many 
instances ;  and  as  "  poetry  which  does  not  get  beyond  the  sound 
of  the  parish  steeple  "  is  not  very  good  poetry,  so  the  converse 
is  also  true,  that  poetry  which  has  a  universal  appeal,  and  not  a 
national  one  only,  is  good  poetry ;  and  since  Moore  is  so  widely 
read,  one  may  conclude  that  Moore  is  all  the  better  poet  for  not 
being  merely  national.  Oft  in  the  Stilly  Night  is  one  of  his  suc- 
cesses. He  is  worth  much  study  as  one  of  the  foremost  lyric 
poets  among  the  minor  writers  of  verse. 

Walter  Savage  Landor  was  not  and  is  not  a  popular  poet,  but 
scholars  and  poets  themselves  have  delighted  in  him.  Shelley 
loved  to  recite  Landor's  Gehir,  a  fantastic  oriental  tale,  published 
in  1798.  Of  one  of  Landor's  dramas,  Count  Julian,  published 
in  181 2,  Southey  made  the  extravagant  statement,  "  No  drama 
to  which  it  can  be  compared  has  ever  yet  been  written,  and  none 
ever  will  be,  except  it  be  by  the  same  hand."  The  story  of  this 
drama  suggests  Shakespeare's  Coriolanus. 

History.  —  Of  the  historians  who  lived  in  this  early  nine- 
teenth-century period,  the  foremost  were  Henry  Hallam, 
Thomas  Babington  Macaulay,  and  Henry  Hart  Milman.  Sir 
Charles  Lyell  might  be  mentioned  as  a  historian  of  the  earth's 
surface.  His  Principles  of  Geology,  1833,  has  done  more  than 
any  one  other  book  to  further  the  study  of  geology,  and  it  is 
written  with  the  fineness  of  order  and  attractiveness  of  state- 
ment that  make  it  a  book  which  no  student  will  fail  to  recognize 
as  literature.  The  philosophic  thought  which  Lyell  put  into 
his  Principles  has  had  a  noteworthy  effect  upon  the  writing  of 


TliE  EARLY  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  235 

human  history,  too,  for  it  has  helped  to  teach  men  to  be  less 
impatient  in  their  following  of  long  processes  and  slow  move- 
ments in  history. 

Although  Macaulay  was  born  in  the  year  1800,  his  historical 
works,  excepting  an  occasional  historical  essay,  were  not  in 
print  until  after  1837,  and  hence  they  will  be  reserved  for  dis- 
cussion under  the  Victorian  Era.  Until  our  own  day  two  works 
by  Henry  Hallam  were  found  in  the  historical  sections  of  every 
library,  great  or  small,  and  were  read  as  authoritative.  They 
were  filled  with  clear  and  cool  thinking  based  upon  immense 
knowledge.  They  have  not  been  so  much  read  since  the  coming 
into  prominence  of  the  ''  scientific  school  "  of  historians,  during 
the  last  years  of  Hallam's  century.  His  two  great  books  were 
View  of  the  State  of  Europe  during  the  Middle  Ages  and  The 
Constitutional  History  of  England.  Henry  Hart  Milman,  Dean 
of  St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  London,  was  a  poet  at  the  beginning  of 
his  career ;  but  his  best  work  was  done  in  prose  history.  There 
is  probably  no  book  upon. its  subject  so  popular  as  Milman's 
History  of  the  Jews,  sl  work  of  very  liberal  scholarship.  His 
six  volumes  of  History  of  Latin  Christianity  are  not  only  rich 
in  details  but  authoritative.  Milman  also  prepared  an  edition  of 
Gibbon's  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  with  notes 
which  did  what  notes  rarely  succeed  in  doing,  —  they  made  the 
book  of  more  interest,  even  to  the  general  reader. 

The  essay.  Lamb.  —  Charles  Lamb  is  the  famous  name 
which  begins  the  brief  list  of  notable  essayists  of  this  short 
period.  Lamb  was  ten  years  older  than  De  Quincey,  the  latter 
being  born  in  1785.  Neither  Lamb  nor  De  Quincey  found  an 
outlet  for  the  best  work  which  he  could  do  until  Lamb  was 
forty-five  years  of  age  and  De  Quincey  thirty-five.  In  that 
year,  1820,  the  London  Magazine  was  founded,  and  much  more 
freedom  for  critical  writers  in  the  expression  of  their  original 


236  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

and  personal  ideas  became  possible  than  in  the  older  and  more 
staid  magazines  of  Edinburgh.  Lamb  now  wrote  the  Essays 
of  Elia  (pronounced  by  their  author  El-lia).  Such  essays  as 
these  are  known  as  "  familiar  essays,"  for  they  have  the  inti- 
mate tone  of  an  easy-chair  conversation  carried  on  between 
the  writer  and  a  sympathetic  friend.  They  are  not  written 
as  dialogues,  but  they  read  almost  like  conversation  with  one 
side  suppressed.  They  are  whimsical  and  merry,  brilliant  and 
yet  genuinely  truthful,  filled  with  that  indefinable  thing  which 
is  called  charm;  in  fact,  a  sort  of  "  divine  chit-chat."  Lamb 
was  not  acquainted  with  any  language  but  the  English.  He  was, 
for  this  reason,  and  for  others  such  as  temperament  and  as 
training  in  other  things  than  languages,  peculiarly  English.  But 
he  was  a  city-Englishman.  He  loved  London,  not  quite  with 
the  passion  with  which  Johnson  had  regarded  the  great  metrop- 
olis, but  with  all  the  deep  glow  of  affection  with  which  Words- 
worth loved  the  country. 

The  first  work  to  attract  considerable  attention  to  Lamb 
was  the  Tales  from  Shakespeare,  in  which  he  told  the  stories  of 
the  tragedies,  and  his  sister,  Mary  Lamb,  told  the  stories  of  the 
comedies  of  Shakespeare,  in  a  manner  most  delightful,  and  re- 
markably true  to  the  feeling  of  the  plays.  His  two  volumes  of 
collected  Letters  have  by  no  means  the  perfect  construction  of 
sentence  or  the  unity  of  form  of  his  essays,  yet  they  are  past 
describing  in  their  wit,  information,  and  sincerity,  and  even 
strength. 

Lamb  has  been  called  a  "  belated  Elizabethan."  He  was  in- 
tensely interested  in  the  literature,  especially  the  drama,  of  the 
Elizabethan  age,  and  was  as  independent  and  free  in  his  own 
thought  as  the  Shakespeareans-were.  Yet  he  was  no  worshiper 
of  that  time  as  if  it  were  the  only  Golden  Age,  any  more  than  he 
was  of  his  own  time.     ''  Hang  the  age,"  he  said,  "I'll  write  for 


THE  EARLY  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  237 

antiquity."  What  seems  to  be  a  strange  thing  to  many  lovers 
of  Shakespeare  is  that  Lamb  thought  the  playing  of  the  dramas 
took  away  their  fineness  of  effect.  He  believed  in  reading  them 
only.  He  said,  "The  plays  of  Shakespeare  are  less  calculated 
for  stage  performances  than  those  of  almost  any  other  dramatist 
whatever."  Coleridge  felt  about  the  same  way.  Doubtless 
they  thought  it  impossible  for  any  one  indirectly  in  contact  with 
the  dramas  (as  one  is  when  he  sees  them  acted)  keenly  to 
sense  their  great  imaginative  quality.  "  The  Lear  of  Shake- 
speare cannot  be  acted,"  Lamb  said.  He  thought  the  same  of 
Falstaff,  Macbeth,  Hamlet,  and  the  rest.  Great  actors  differ 
with  him.  Almost  every  actor  of  consequence  hopes  sometime 
to  play  the  part  of  Hamlet.  Lamb's  volume  of  Specimens  of 
English  Dramatists  Contemporary  with  Shakespeare  brought  to  the 
literary  public  a  great  deal  of  forgotten  literature,  edited  in  such 
choice  way  as  no  other  Englishman  could  have  edited  them, 
for  Lamb  had  a  fine  critical  gift.  He  believed  in  "  the  vigorous 
passions  and  virtues  clad  in  flesh  and  blood  "  of  the  old  drama- 
tists. Lamb  was  a  critic  of  painting  as  well  as  of  drama,  and 
his  paper  on  the  Genius  of  Hogarth  proclaimed  that  eighteenth- 
century  painter  to  be  what  he  was,  "  the  great  English  master 
of  imaginative  painting,  Shakespearean  in  intensity  of  vision, 
in  profusion  of  thought,  in  many-sided  sympathy  with  human 
life,  in  the  blending  of  laughter  and  tears,"  the  man  who 
insisted  that  ''  There  is  but  one  school,  that  of  Nature,"  not 
adding,  as  did  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  "  and  of  that  school  the 
old  masters  hold  the  key."  Yet  Hogarth  has  not  had  as  much 
influence  as  the  man  who  wrote  of  him. 

It  is  hard  to  select  the  best  of  Lamb's  essays,  for  what 
is  most  appealing  to  one  reader  is  not  always  so  to  another. 
While  his  essay  on  the  Tragedies  of  Shakespeare,  for  its  fervor 
and  nobility,  is,  possibly,  superior  to  any  other  of  his  writings, 


238  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

yet  there  is  no  doubt  but  that  the  following  arc  much  more 
popular :  A  Dissertation  upon  Roast  Pig,  A  Bachelor's  Complaint 
of  the  Behavior  of  Married  People,  In  Praise  of  Chimney-Sweepers, 
Sanity  of  True  Genius,  Mrs.  Battlers  Opinions  on  Whist,  Old 
China,  The  Decay  of  Beggars  in  the  Metropolis.  Two  of  his 
essays,  The  Superannuated  Man  and  Dream  Children:  a 
Revery,  deserve  special  mention;  for  in  the  former  he  frankly 
portrayed  himself,  and  in  the  latter,  while  he  was  equally  frank 
about  his  inner  longings,  yet  in  addition  to  that  he  achieved 
the, writing  of  an  almost  perfect  short-story. 

Coleridge's  prose.  —  As  Falstafif  is  *'  the  cause  of  wit  that 
is  in  other  men,"  so  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge  has  been  the  cause 
of  much  of  thought  that  is  in  other  men's  books.  Sir  Francis 
Bacon  once  said,  "  Mr.  Savile  was  asked  by  my  lord  of  Essex 
his  opinion  touching  poets,  who  answered  my  lord :  *  He  thought 
them  the  best  writers,  next  to  those  that  write  prose.'  "  Had 
Bacon  had  before  him  such  fiercely  beautiful  lines  as  Coleridge's 

The  fair  breeze  blew,  the  white  foam  flew, 

The  furrow  followed  free : 

We  were  the  first  that  ever  burst 

Into  that  silent  sea, 

and  any  prose  page  from  Coleridge,  he  might  have  quoted  my 
lord  of  Essex's  friend  with  less  of  approval.  Coleridge  in 
nearly  all  of  his  pages  of  prose  is  unreadable  excepting  to  the 
trained  and  disciplined  mind.  His  most  systematic  and  perhaps 
best  work  in  prose  is  his  Aids  to  Reflection.  Many  a  thinker 
and  writer,  when  his  mind  refuses  to  bring  to  the  surface 
ideas  with  "  stuff  and  substance  "  in  them,  has  taken  from  his 
shelf  Coleridge's  Aids  and  after  a  few  minutes  of  close  reading 
has  found  his  mind  to  be  stimulated  to  fruitful  work  once  more. 
Coleridge  was  very  strongly  under  the  influence  of  Kant  and 


THE  EARLY  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  239 

Schlegel  and  other  German  philosophers  and  literary  critics, 
and  his  language  reflects  the  Chinese  puzzle  style,  as  Schopen- 
hauer called  it,  of  the  German  philosophic  prose  sentence.  His 
contemporaries  all  bore  witness  that  Coleridge's  talk  was  much 
more  influential  over  his  literary  friends  and  worshipers  than 
his  writing.  He  was  perhaps  the  greatest  of  thoughtful  monolo- 
gists.  William  Hazlitt  once  undertook  to  give  a  unified  im- 
pression of  the  content  of  Coleridge's  teeming  mind  by 
writing  one  sentence  about  it.  The  sentence  is  probably  the 
longest  in  the  English  language.  It  ought  to  delight  a  Ger- 
man philosopher,  for  it  contains  eight  hundred  and  forty- 
eight  words. 

Hazlitt.  —  William  Hazlitt  is  one  of  the  first-rate  critical 
writers  of  modern  times.  Not  so  philosophic  as  Coleridge,  nor 
so  scientific  as  Matthew  Arnold,  nor  so  literary  in  his  style 
as  Lamb,  yet,  by  dint  of  personal  enthusiasm  for  what  he 
wrote  about,  he  opened  the  eyes  of  thousands  of  readers  who 
had  failed  to  see  the  rich  beauties  and  the  fine  values  of  the 
writers  of  the  past.  He  wrote  and  lectured  brilliantly,  most 
of  his  lectures  appearing  later  in  print.  His  most  valuable 
works  are  the  Characters  of  Shakespeare^ s  Flays,  the  Lectures 
on  the  English  Poets,  Lectures  on  the  English  Comic  Writers, 
and  Lectures  on  the  Dramatic  Literature  of  the  Reign  of 
Queen  Elizabeth.  Hazlitt  had  a  mind  of  his  own,  and,  though 
early  in  life  he  was  much  dominated  in  thought  by  Coleridge, 
yet  when  he  came  to  write  upon  Shakespeare,  he  objected  to 
Coleridge's  dependence  upon  "  a  foreign  critic  to  give  reasons 
for  the  faith  which  we  English  have  in  Shakespeare."  The  for- 
eign critic  was  A.  W.  Schlegel.  Hazlitt  also  protested,  almost 
with  resentment,  against  the  low  opinion  held  by  the  German  and 
English  romanticists  concerning  the  French  men  of  letters: 
Montaigne,  Rabelais,  and  Moliere. 


240  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

Hunt.  —  James  Henry  Leigh  Hunt  edited  at  least  six  different 
magazines,  and  was  a  contributor  to  many  more.  His  poetry 
is  worth  a  great  deal  more  than  his  prose,  but  his  essay  upon 
Wit  and  Humour,  printed  in  1846,  after  the  early  period  of 
nineteenth-century  literature  had  closed,  is  the  best  known  of 
all  his  prose  writings.  It  is  of  considerable  value.  The  "  psy- 
chological "  studies  in  the  same  subject  made  in  our  own  day  add 
little  but  new  forms  of  statement  to  what  Hunt  said  upon  it. 

Wordsworth.  —  Wordsworth  should  be  at  least  mentioned  as 
an  essayist  of  this  period,  for  his  collected  prose  works  fill 
three  large  octavo  volumes.  The  famous  essay  prefixed  to 
the  edition  of  the  Lyrical  Ballads  in  1798  should  be  read  by  all 
who  are  interested  in  the  language  of  poetry ;  though  it  must  be 
observed  that  Wordsworth's  theory  that  the  simplest  and  most 
familiar  language  is  best  for  use  in  poetry  fails  to  take  into 
account  that  it  was  just  that  sort  of  poetic  usage  which  had  made 
the  verse  writing  of  the  eighteenth  century  largely  mere  verse 
and  not  poetry.  It  also  fails  to  take  into  account  the  fact  that 
the  language  used  by  Burns  (whom,  no  doubt,  Wordsworth 
had  much  in  mind),  while  familiar  enough  to  the  Scotch,  was 
very  unfamiliar  to  Englishmen  of  Burns's  time. 

Lander. — Walter  Savage  Landor's  Imaginary  Conversations 
between  characters  of  all  times,  from  the  Greek  classical  to  his 
own,  are  read  for  th^sir  grace  and  charm  by  the  cultured  student, 
rarely  by  others.  Landor  is  like  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  Robert 
Burton,  and  Thomas  Fuller  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and 
like  Ruskin  and  Pater  of  his  own  later  days,  in  the  elaborate 
character  of  his  style ;  but  to  the  "  average  "  man  who  reads, 
his  splendidly  finished  phrases  are,  even  more  than  in  the  case 
of  Addison's,  too  often  rather  meaningless,  if  not  entirely  so. 
But  it  must  be  admitted  that  for  their  magnificent  artistry 
those  phrases  are  imperishably  beautiful. 


THE   EARLY  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  241 

Whately.  —  Richard  Whately,  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  whose 
Historic  Doubts  Relative  to  Napoleon  Bonaparte  was  a  theologi- 
cal rather  than  a  historical  work,  and  was  extremely  "  taking," 
did  some  very  serviceable  work  in  his  Elements  of  Logic  and  his 
Elements  of  Rhetoric.  The  latter  is  still  used  in  a  few  schools  as 
a  textbook;  but  it  is  more  than  a  mere  class  handbook,  for 
it  contains  the  best  modern  elaboration  of  the  logic  of  Aristotle, 
the  ancient  Greek,  applied  to  popular  argumentation. 

De  Quincey.  —  De  Quincey  was  aroused  to  much  thinking 
by  the  so-called  "  Lake  Poets,"  Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  and 
Southey,  near  whom  he  lived ;  and  the  journalists,  the  editors  of 
the  great  magazines  of  Edinburgh  and  London,  led  him  to  do 
most  pf  his  writing.  De  Quincey  classified  his  writings  under 
the  three  heads  of  autobiographical,  critical,  and  imaginative. 
The  classification  is  of  little  worth,  for  it  is  impossible  to  tell, 
as  with  Poe,  his  contemporary  in  America,  when  the  author  is 
being  truthful  and  when  hoaxing.  Nearly  all  of  his  work  is  written 
in  "  impassioned  prose,"  such  as  stimulates  the  imagination  of  the 
reader  to  vivid  action.  All  his  works  belong  rather  to  the  litera- 
ture of  power  than  to  the  literature  of  knowledge ;  a  distinction 
made  by  De  Quincey  himself  in  the  following  words,  —  with  fur- 
ther elaboration,  however :  "  There  is,  first,  the  literature  of 
knowledge,  and,  secondly,  the  literature  of  power.  The  function 
of  the  first  is  to  teach;  the  function  of  the  second  is  to  move; 
the  first  is  a  rudder,  the  second  an  oar  or  a  sail."  De  Quincey 
too  often  indulges  in  over-minute  and  subtle  analyses  and  dis- 
tinctions; but  this  is  the  common  fault  of  the  very  logical 
mind,  and  in  spite  of  this  habit  and  the  habit  of  unnecessary 
digressions  from  the  main  theme  in  hand,  his  descriptions  and 
his  expositions  are  unsurpassed  and  many  of  them  unequaled. 
His  Summary  View  of  the  History  of  Greek  Literature,  pages 
242-255  of  volume  X  of  his  Collected  Works,  is  one  of  the  finest 


242  ENGLISH  LiTERATURfi 

and  most  easily  memorable  passages  of  exposition  in  any  lan- 
guage. It  is  highly  ingenious  and  at  the  same  time  perfectly 
convincing,  Which  ingenious  things  so  seldom  are.  The  student 
should  not  fail  to  read  this  passage  and  make  it  a  part  of  his 
own  mental  furnishing.  His  Autobiography,  Confessions  of  an 
English  Opium-Eater,  The  English  Mail  Coach,  and  Our  Ladies 
of  Sorrow  are  renowned  for  their  imaginative  splendor  of  thought 
and  picture.  The  Confessions  must  not  be  taken  too  seriously, 
for  although  their  author  was  terribly  and  almost  unbelievably 
addicted  to  laudanum  drinking,  yet,  as  Professor  Saintsbury 
suggests,  these  confessions  may  be  the  "  results  of  his  dreams, 
or  of  his  fancy  and  literary  genius  working  on  his  dreams,  or  of 
his  fancy  and  genius  by  themselves." 

One  passage  from  "  Levana  "  in  Our  Ladies  of  Sorrow  is  too 
lofty  to  leave  unnoticed.  Of  it  David  Masson  in  his  Life  of 
De  Quincey  in  the  English  Men  of  Letters  series,  has  said :  "  This 
is  prose-poetry;  but  it  is  more.  It  is  a  permanent  addition 
to  the  mythology  of  the  human  race.  As  the  Graces  are  three, 
as  the  Fates  are  three,  as  the  Furies  are  three,  as  the  Muses 
were  originally  three,  so  may  the  varieties  and  degrees  of  misery 
that  there  are  in  the  world,  and  the  proportions  of  their  distri- 
bution among  mankind,  be  represented  to  the  human  imagina- 
tion forever  by  De  Quincey's  Three  Ladies  of  Sorrow  and  his 
sketch  of  their  figures  and  kingdoms." 

Macaulay.  —  The  noteworthy  work  of  Macaulay  during 
this  period  consists  of  his  three  essays  on  Milton,  Machiavelli, 
and  Johnson.  The  first  was  published  in  the  Edinburgh  Review 
in  August,  1824.  The  editor,  Jeffrey,  in  acknowledging  the 
manuscript  said,  "  The  more  I  think,  the  less  I  can  conceive 
where  you  picked  up  that  style."  Macaulay's  style  consisted, 
in  its  form,  of  an  accumulation  of  antithetical  ideas  which  he 
stated  in  balanced  and  parallel  forms  both  in  phrases  and  in  sen- 


THE   EARLY  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  243 

tences,  and  even  in  paragraphs.  He  filled  his  paragraphs  with 
comparisons  and  contrasts.  The  style  is,  therefore,  strongly 
analytical,  and  yet  it  is  not  filled  with  the  nice  distinctions 
which  a  more  judicial  temper  than  Macaulay's  would  put 
into  such  analyses.  Then,  his  style,  despite  this  flood  of  com- 
parisons and  contrasts,  is  one  in  which  the  movement  of 
the  thought  sweeps  swiftly  on,  never  hesitating,  by  no  means 
ever  weakening  into  even  one  languid  sentence.  This  bold, 
swift,  onward-rushing  movement  gives  an  air  of  dogmatism 
to  his  thought;  and  that  is  precisely  the  character  of  his 
thought.  It  is  highly  dogmatic.  Macaulay  decides  every 
thing  in  terms  of  his  own  likes  and  dislikes.  But  the  strange 
thing  about  his  essays  is  that  he  never  expected  them  to  be 
read  beyond  his  own  generation.  "  They  are  not  expected  to 
be  highly  finished,"  he  said;  ''their  natural  life  is  only  six 
weeks."  They  were  written  for  magazine  readers;  but  their 
writer  was  a  man  of  great  gifts  of  expression,  if  not  of  profound 
thought,  and  the  manly  character  and  boundless  self-confidence 
which  stood  back  of  these  gifts  make  the  essays  attractive  and 
moving  to  aH  who  read  them. 

The  essay  on  Machiavelli  is  a  good  illustration,  an  excellent 
one  indeed,  of  the  manner  in  which  its  author  habitually  planned 
his  work  in  its  larger  elements.  He  was  rather  mechanical  about 
it.  If  he  wished  it  to  be  thought  that  a  certain  idea  or  phase 
of  thought  was  more  important  than  another,  he  would  simply 
emphasize  it  by  giving  to  it  larger  space,  —  more  words,  sentences, 
paragraphs.  So  it  is  in  this  essay  on  Machiavelli.  The  essay 
is  worth  the  student's  close  analysis  in  order,  if  for  no  other 
reason,  that  he  may  see  that  emphasis  may  be  a  matter  of  length. 
To  be  sure,  it  is  better  to  gain  emphasis  by  force  of  thought 
than  by  length  of  treatment.  It  was  one  of  Macaulay's  defects 
not  to  do  so ;  and  yet  it  showed  plainly  that  he  knew  that  his 


244  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

work,  to  be  effective,  must  be  planned.  His  essays  are  always 
pointed,  energetic,  and  sincere,  whatever  else  may  be  said 
of  them.  The  essay  on  Johnson  is  the  best  of  all  brief  treat- 
ments of  that  marvelous  man,  though  it  cannot,  nor  can  any- 
thing else,  take  the  place  of  Boswell's  Life.  All  of  Macaulay's 
work  is  illustrative  of  bluff  old  Doctor  Johnson's  statement  that 
"  The  greater  part  of  an  author's  time  is  spent  in  reading  in 
order  to  write ;  a  man  will  turn  over  half  a  library  to  make  one 
book."  Few  men  have  read  more  than  Macaulay  did,  and 
perhaps  no  man  ever  had  a  better  memory.. 

The  rest  of  his  works  came  to  the  public  after  the  beginning 
of  Victoria's  reign,  and  will  be  discussed  in  the  next  chapter. 

Minor  novelists  before  1837.  —  The  minor  novelists  of  the 
age  ending  with  1837  were  Jane  Porter,  Maria  Edgeworth, 
Captain  Frederick  Marryat,  Bulwer  Lytton,  and  Thomas  Love 
Peacock.  Jane  Porter's  two  famous  books  are  Thaddeus  of 
Warsaw  and  Scottish  Chiefs.  Both  are  fascinating  national 
tales,  and  have  been  extremely  popular.  Maria  Edgeworth's 
books  for  children  are  more  delightful  and  her  Essay  on  Irish 
Bulls  more  charming  than  any  of  her  novels ;  but  if  there  were 
no  other  purpose  in  mentioning  her  novels,  the  fact  that  Sir 
Walter  said  that  they  had  provided  the  suggestion  for  his 
Scotch  novels  would  be  sufficient.  Her  Castle  Rackrent  awakens 
a  warm-hearted  fervor  for  the  Irish  characters  whom  she  loves 
to  portray.  Captain  Marryat  has  won  undying  fame  by  his 
nautical  stories.  No  boy  who  loves  the  sea,  and  who  loves 
adventure  wherever  met,  can  afford  to  lose  the  intense  excite- 
ment which  the  reading  of  Mr.  Midshipman  Easy  will  arouse. 
Three  of  Lord  Lytton 's  historical  novels.  The  Last  Days  oj 
Pompeii,  Rienzi,  and  The  Last  of  the  Barons,  were,  until  the  im- 
mense flood  of  late  nineteenth-century  fiction,  read  by  all  who 
loved  the  novel.    They  have  great  value  to  one  who  still  cares 


THE   EARLY   NINETEENTH  CENTURY  245 

to  become  familiar  with  the  spirit  and  customs  of  the  times  in 
which  the  stories  are  laid.  The  alluring  life  of  the  destroyed 
city  of  Pompeii,  the  power  of  the  king-maker,  Earl  Warwick, 
and  the  patriotism  of  the  last  of  the  Tribunes  of  Rome  who  en- 
deavored during  the  late  middle  ages  to  revive  the  ancient  gran- 
deur of  the  Eternal  City,  are  appealing  themes  to  both  the 
thinking  novel-reader  and  the  historian.  Bulwer  Lytton's  short- 
story,  The  House  and  the  Brain,  or  The  Haunted  and  the 
Haunters,  is  one  of  the  best  ghost-stories  ever  written.  It  has 
not  the  originality  of  conception  of  the  story  by  a  contemporary 
American,  Fitz- James  O'Brien,  entitled  What  Was  It;  A 
Mystery.  Yet  it  is  the  best  handling  of  the  terror  story  in 
which  the  two  complementary  passions,  love  of  life  and  fear 
of  death,  are  wrought  upon  by  mere  mechanical  contrivance, 
as  was  the  fashion  when  Lord  Lytton  wrote,  in  the  dying 
days  of  the  school  of  terror  in  fiction,  even  more  than  it  was 
in  the  days  of  its  founders,  Horace  Walpole,  Mrs.  Radcliife, 
and  "  Monk  "  Lewis. 

Peacock.  —  Thomas  Love  Peacock  deserves  more  than  even 
a  paragraph  to  himself.  It  is  with  hesitancy  that  he  is  here 
classed  with  "  minor  "  novelists;  he  rather  stands  by  himself 
between  the  minor  and  the  major  novelists.  There  are  no 
other  novels  in  English  precisely  like  those  of  Peacock.  No 
other  Englishman  has  had  the  power  of  derisive  laughter  so 
fully  developed  as  Peacock  had.  He  was  like  the  Frenchman 
Voltaire,  in  his  keen  irony  based  upon  thorough  understanding 
of  what  he  ridiculed.  His  Nightmare  Abbey  is  illustrative  of 
his  intensely  fine  satire.  In  it  he  draws  portraits  of  Cole- 
ridge, the  metaphysical  pessimist,  and  of  Byron,  the  sentimental 
pessimist,  and  even  caricatures  the  love  affairs  of  Shelley, 
though  he  does  not  name  the  men  Coleridge,  Byron,  and  Shelley. 
All  is  handled  in  the  most  fantastic  way,  so  that  while  one  is 


246  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

face  to  face  with  the  most  familiar  facts,  yet  the  fanciful  treat- 
ment allows  him  the  full  escape  from  familiar  fact  which  the 
ridiculed  romanticists  were  ever  seeking.  It  is  astonishing  to 
learn  that  the  sensitive  Shelley  read  Nightmare  Abbey  with  the 
greatest  of  enjoyment,  and  could  find  no  praise  adequate  for 
both  its  lightness  and  its  strength. 

But  it  is  in  Peacock's  The  Misfortunes  of  Elphin  that  we  dis- 
cover the  richest  vein  of  satire,  and,  as  if  by  accident,  some  of 
the  best  ballad  poetry  ever  written.  That  one  of  its  char- 
acters has  been  called  "  the  Welsh  Falstaff  "  is  sufficient  indica- 
tion of  the  deeply  humorous  character  of  the  story.  Peacock 
takes  legendary  romantic  matter,  such  as  the  medieval  tales 
concerning  King  Arthur  are  filled  with,  and  in  the  most  grotesque 
and  yet  subtle  fashion,  in  a  clear  and  splendidly  poetic  manner, 
in  both  prose  and  verse  manipulates  those  old  tales  in  such  a 
way  as  to  pour  most  side-shaking  ridicule  upon  the  "  world  full 
of  fools"  who  were  writing  of  and  worshiping  the  unlifelike 
and  meaningless  aspect  of  the  legends  of  Wales  and  Brittany. 
And  yet  he  was  a  better  romanticist  than  they,  if  romanticism 
be  thought  of  as  a  revival  of  the  truth  of  the  older  life.  •  He  had 
no  use  for  mystification,  which  he  thought  most  of  the  "mys- 
tery" of  the  contemporary  romanticists  to  be.  But  he  had 
great  use,  a  use  that  would  give  high  delight  to  life,  for  the  real 
and  clearly  human  elements  in  the  life  of  those  who  had  lived 
in  the  half-wild  state  of  the  days  of  yore ;  and  we  learn  in  his 
book  to  love  those  in  whom  these  so  human  elements  showed 
themselves,  and  to  wish  we  might  have  but  a  small  share  in 
their  existence.  If  one  were  greatly  to  intensify  and  heighten 
the  subtle  but  mild  humor  of  the  Mother  Goose  rhyme  of  '*  When 
good  King  Arthur  ruled  his  land,"  thought  by  some  to  have  been 
written  by  Goldsmith,  he  might  have  some  fairly  adequate 
notion  of  the  viewpoint  of  Peacock  in  relation  to  those  times. 


THE   EARLY  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  247 

No  doubt  whatever  that  his  book  contains  a  much  truer  picture 
of  the  "  regal  realities  "  of  King  Arthur's  times  than  do  the 
writings  of  Sir  Thomas  Malory  and  of  Tennyson.  Headlong 
Hall,  written  earlier  than  Nightmare  Abbey  and  The  Mis- 
fortunes of  Elphin,  and  Crotchet  Castle,  written  much  later 
than  they,  are  just  as  jovial,  just  as  pointedly  sharp  in  their 
attack  upon  fads  and  crazes,  and  just  as  superbly  interesting 
as  the  books  to  which  we  have  given  more  attention. 

Early  nineteenth- century  literature  in  America.  —  In 
America  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  there  was 
at  least  one  man  who  was  giving  his  life  exclusively  to  literature, 
Charles  Brockden  Brown.  By  1802  Brown  had  produced 
seven  romances,  after  the  manner  of  the  contemporary  school 
of  terror  in  England.  Wieland;  or  The  Transformation  and 
Ormond  ;  or  The  Secret  Witness  are  titles  of  two  of  them,  and 
are  sufficient  by  title  to  suggest  the  nature  of  their  contents. 
Before  1820  Washington  Irving  had  written  his  Knickerbocker 
History  of  New  York  and  the  Sketch- Bo  ok,  the  latter  con- 
taining Rip  Van  Winkle,  The  Spectre  Bridegroom,  and  The 
Legend  of  Sleepy  Hollow.  Irving  "  is  not  an  American  Gold- 
smith; he  is  an  Anglo-Saxon  Irving."  Neither  was  James 
Fenimore  Cooper  an  American  Scott ;  he  was  an  Anglo-Saxon 
Cooper.  Cooper's  The  Spy,  The  Pilot,  and  most  of  the  Leather- 
Stocking  Tales  were  published  before  1837,  the  date  ending 
this  period.  They  hardly  need  describing  to  an  American  boy, 
—  nor  to  many  English  boys,  for  that  matter.  The  New  York 
editor,  William  CuUen  Bryant,  published  most  of  his  best  poems 
before  1825,  Thanatopsis  and  To  a  Water  Fowl  being  published 
in  The  North  American  Review  in  181 7  and  181 8,  respectively. 
By  1837  Poe  had  published  his  earlier  poems  and  a  few  of  his 
short-stories,  —  Berenice,  probably  the  first  short-story  almost 
perfectly  employing  the  modern  technique,  being  printed  in 


248  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

1835.  Edward  Coate  Pinkney's  A  Health,  so  well  known  for 
its  lines  beginning 

I  fill  this  cup  to  one  made  up  of  loveliness  alone, 

was  written  during  this  period.  Pinkney  and  Poe  were  both 
Southern  poets.  It  will  be  seen  that  the  literature  of  the  United 
States  was  thus  far  produced  in  either  New  York  or  the  South. 
In  the  last  year  of  this  period,  however,  the  literary  geography 
was  changed,  and  New  England  became  prominent.  In  1837 
appeared  the  first  series  of  Hawthorne's  Twite-Told  Tales, 
and  in  that  same  year  Emerson  delivered  the  declaration  of 
American  intellectual  independence  in  his  stirring  Phi  Beta 
Kappa  address  at  Harvard  University  on  The  American  Scholar. 
Nothing  of  any  great  value  had  come  from  New  England  pre- 
vious to  that  year,  unless  we  except  Old  Ironsides  and  The 
Last  Leaf,  by  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes.  Unquestionably  Cooper, 
Hawthorne,  and  Poe  are  worthy  of  comparison  with  their  con- 
temporaries in  the  Old  World,  Hawthorne  being  one  of  the 
greatest  novelists  of  any  country  or  time ;  but  we  can  merely 
mention  them  in  a  book  devoted  chiefly  to  the  literature  of 
England. 

QUESTIONS  AND   TOPICS   FOR  DISCUSSION 

1.  Discuss  the  general  characteristics  of  the  nineteenth-century  life  and 
thought. 

2.  Give  the  dates  marking  off  the  periods  of  its  literature. 

3.  What  features  especially  characterize  the  first  period? 

4.  Who  were  the  great  poets  of  the  first  period  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, and  who  its  great  novelists? 

5.  Discuss  the  effects  of  the  French  Revolution  upon  English  poets. 

6.  How  would  you  distinguish  the  poetic  work  of  Coleridge  from  that 
of  Wordsworth,  and  how  that  of  Scott  from  both  of  them? 

7.  How  distinguish  the  work  of  Byron  from  that  of  Shelley,  and  that 
of  Keats  from  each  of  the  other  two? 


THE   EARLY  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  249 

8.  What  poem  by  Shelley  do  you  like  best?     What  makes  you  like  it 
better  than  others  by  him? 

9.  Memorize  Keats's  The  Human  Seasons;  also  the  stanzas  of  The  Eve 
of  Saint  Agnes  which  you  like  best. 

10.  What  were  the  chief  influences  molding  the  work  of  Shelley  ?  of  Keats  ? 

11.  Why  could  not  the  pictures  in  Keats's  La  Belle  Dame  Sans  Merci  be 
painted  ? 

12.  Compare  the  work  of  Jane  Austen  with  that  of  Sir  Walter  Scott. 

13.  Ivanhoe:  (a)  Compare  the  first  chapter  with  the  opening  chapter 
of  Waverley;  with  the  opening  chapter  of  Quentin  Durward.  (b)  Draw  a 
plan  of  the  lists  from  the  description  in  Chapter  VII,  (c)  Of  Chapters 
XII,  XIII,  and  XXIX,  which  do  you  think  the  best?  Give  your  reasons. 
(d)  Find  as  many  passages  as  you  can  illustrating  the  differences  between 
Saxon  and  Norman,  (e)  Point  out  some  differences  between  conversation 
in  fiction  and  conversation  in  actual  life.  (/)  In  landscape  description  do 
you  think  Scott  is  better  in  his  novels  or  in  his  poems?  (g)  What  is  the 
most  picturesque  incident  in  Ivanhoe? 

14.  Commit  to  memory  one  of  the  poems  of  Thomas  Campbell,  prefer- 
ably one  of  his  patriotic  poems. 

15.  Which  of  the  essays  of  Charles  Lamb  is  your  favorite ?     Why? 

16.  Name  the  other  essa3dsts  of  the  period;  also  three  of  the  lesser 
novelists. 

17.  Who  were  the  leading  writers  in  America  before  1837?  What  have 
you  already  read  of  their  writings  ? 

READING   LIST  FOR  THE   EARLY   NINETEENTH   CENTURY 
POETRY 

Coleridge,  Christahel  and  Other  Poems.     Edited  by  Hannaford 

Bennett.- 

Wordsworth,  Ode   on   Intimations   of   Immortality,    The   Solitary 

Reaper,  Ode  to  Duty.  In  Selected  Poems, 
edited  by  Clara  L.  Thomson. 

Scott,  The  Lady  of  the  Lake.     Edited  by  L.  DuPont  Syle. 

Byron,  Childe  Harold's  Departure,  The  Destruction  of  Sen- 

nacherib, Mazeppa's  Ride,  Sonnet  on  Chillon.  In 
Poems,  chosen  and  arranged  by  Matthew  Arnold. 


250  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

Shelley,  The  Cloud,  To  a  Skylark,  Ode  to  the  West  Wind.     In 

Poems  by  Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  Shelley,  and  Keats, 

edited  by  James  Webber  Linn. 
Keats,  Isabella,  The  Eve  of  Saint  Agnes,  Ode  on  a  Grecian 

Urn,  La  Belle  Dame  Sans  Merci.       In    Poems, 

edited  by  Arlo  Bates. 

ESSAY 

Macaulay,  Milton,     Johnson.      "  Everyman's     Library."      Mis- 

cellaneous Essays.  "  Winston's  Illustrated  Handy 
Classics." 

Lamb,  A   Dissertation   upon    Roast    Pig,  Dream    Children. 

In  A  Book  of  English  Essays,  edited  by  C.  T. 
Winchester, 

De  Qudjcey,  Joan  of   Arc,  The  English  Mail-Coach.     Edited  by 

J.  M.  Hart. 

NOVEL 

Dickens,  Pickwick  Papers.     "  Everyman's  Library."     (See  next 

period.) 
Jane  Austen,  Pride  and  Prejudice.     Winston's  "  Illustrated  Handy 

Classics." 
Scott,  Waverley,  Ivanhoe,  Quentin   Durward,  Rob  Roy,    The 

Heart  of  Midlothian,  The  Pirate,  Guy  Mannering, 

Kenilworth,  The  Talisman.  *'  Everyman's  Library." 
Marryat,  Mr.  Midshipman  Easy.     "  Everyman's  Library." 

Jane  Porter,  Thaddeus  of  Warsaw,  with  Introduction  by  Ernest  A. 

Baker. 
BuLWER  Lytton,     The    Last    Days   of  Pompeii,   Rienzi.     "Everyman's 

Library." 
Peacock,  The   Misfortunes   of    Elphin,   with   Introduction   by 

George  Saintsbury. 


SOUTHEY, 


BIOGRAPHY 
Life  of  Nelson.    Edited  by  Frederick  H.  Law. 


THE   EARLY  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  25 1 

HELPFUL  BOOKS  ON  THE  PERIOD 

A    History   of  Nineteenth   Century   Literature,    George   Saintsbury.     (The 

Macmillan  Company.) 
The  French  Revolution  and  English  Literature,  Edward  Dowden,     (Scrib- 

ner's.) 
English  Poetry  from  Blake  to  Browning,  W.  Macneale  Dixon.     (Methuen  & 

Co.) 
The  Age  of  Wordsworth,  C.  H.  Herford.     (George  Bell  &  Sons.) 
The  French  Revolution  attd  the  English  Poets,  A.  E.  Hancock.     (Henry  Holt  & 

Co.) 
Shelley,  Godwin,  and  Their  Circle,  H.  N.  Brailsford.     (Henry  Holt  &  Co.) 
History  of  English  Literature  and  of  the  English  Language,  pages  435  to  520, 

George  L.  Craik.     (Griffin,  Bohn,  &  Co.) 
See  also  Bibliography  on  The  Novel,  in  Chapter  IX,  page  378. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE   VICTORIAN   ERA 

I 837-1890 

I.   General  Characteristics 

Science  and  imagination.  —  The  nineteenth  century  was 
above  all  a  century  of  progress  in  science.  Contrary,  however, 
to  what  one  might  carelessly  think,  the  rise  of  science  to  great 
importance  by  no  means  weakened  the  power  of  the  imagination. 
The  fact  of  the  matter  is  that  the  highest  achievements  of 
science  are  due  to  the  exercise  of  the  power  of  the  imagination 
rather  than  to  that  of  any  other  power,  though  its  working  comes 
generally  at  the  end  of  a  long  process  of  patient  observation  and 
correlation  of  the  results  of  what  has  been  observed.  After 
such  a  process,  the  imagination,  as  in  the  case  of  Newton  or  of 
Darwin,  seizes  the  correlated  results  and  from  them  wrests  a 
conclusion  which  we  call  a  law  of  nature.  A  law  of  nature 
is  simply  a  statement  covering  what  Huxley  called  "  an  ob- 
served uniformity."  Every  one  recognizes  that  it  is  the  imagi- 
native power  of  the  mind  which  makes  possible  the  work  of  such 
a  man  as  Thomas  Edison,  or  Commodore  Peary,  or  the  man 
who  builds  a  transcontinental  railway,  or  one  who  constructs  a 
Panama  or  a  Cape  Cod  or  a  Kiel  canal.  The  imagination  is 
not  confined  to  the  operations  of  the  spirit  of  a  fictionist 
or  of  a  poet  only.  Hence  it  is  that  science,  instead  of 
retarding  the  advance  of  the  expression  of  the  human  spirit  in 

252 


THE  VICTORIAN  ERA  253 

literature  and  the  arts  generally,  has  aided  that  expression  be- 
yond our  power  yet  fully  to  comprehend.  If  it  is  said  that  the 
imagination  of  the  poet  or  of  the  tale-teller  often  fades  away  into 
mere  fancy-mongering,  the  same  may  with  equal  truth  be  said 
of  the  imagination  of  the  scientist,  of  the  inventor,  or  of  the 
captain  of  industry.  It  is  the  most  commonly  observed  of  all 
things  in  human  life  that  we  are  hourly  coming  to  conclusions 
in  science,  in  invention,  and  in  industry,  which  the  next  hour 
sees  us  abandoning. 

Division.  —  We  may  consider  the  literature  of  the  Victorian 
era  under  the  heads  of  history,  prose  fiction,  criticism,  science, 
and  poetry.  Although  science  was  of  such  immense  conse- 
quence, it  came  to  be  favorable  in  its  effect  upon  history  and 
fiction  and  criticism  rather  in  our  own  day  than  in  the  Victorian 
era.  The  Victorians  were  greatly  affected  by  it,  but  many  of 
them  almost  as  much  in  the  way  of  struggling  against  it  as  in 
cooperating  with  it.  Poetry  was,  strange  as  it  may  seem, 
more  quickly  and  directly  molded  by  scientific  thought  than 
any  of  the  other  forms  of  literature,  because  of  the  sensitiveness 
of  the  poetic  mind  to  progressive  movements  in  thought. 

II.  History 

The  leading  historians  of  the  period  we  are  now  upon  were 
Thomas  Carlyle,  Thomas  Babington  Macaulay,  George  Grote, 
Edward  Augustus  Freeman,  John  Richard  Green,  and  James 
Anthony  Froude.  No  other  nation  has  ever  furnished  in  so 
brief  a  time  such  an  array  of  brilliant  writers  upon  the  past 
affairs  of  men  as  these  six  Englishmen ;  and  across  the  Atlan- 
tic in  America  there  were  four  others  who  were  hardly  in- 
ferior to  them,  —  Prescott,  Motley,  Parkman,  and  Bancroft. 

Carlyle.  —  The  historical  work  of  paramount  importance 
done  by  Carlyle  is  in  two  books.  History  0}  the  French  Revolution 


254  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

and  History  of  Frederick  the  Great.  The  first  appeared  in  1837, 
the  second  not  until  1865.  In  these  books  Carlyle  showed  him- 
self to  be  the  foremost  historian  England  had  produced  since 
Edward  Gibbon.,  The  French  Revolution  is  matchless  in  the 
vividness  of  its  descriptive  passages,  extraordinarily  imagina- 
tive, yet  with  no  distortion  of  facts,  and  overflowing  with  phil- 
osophical interpretation  of  events.  "  Quack-ridden,"  said  Car- 
lyle, "  in  that  one  word  lies  all  misery  whatsoever."  This 
history  and  many  others  of  his  works  were  written  to  show 
the  world  the  truth  of  that  statement.  The  Frederick  the  Great 
is  the  leading  interpretation  of  the  history  of  eighteenth-century 
Germany,  the  period  of  the  rise  of  Prussia.  Carlyle's  Oliver 
CromwelVs  Letters  and  Speeches  should  also  be  noted  as  the  most 
authoritative  work  upon  the  life  of  the  great  Commoner. 

Macaulay. — ^As  early  as  1828  Macaulay,  in  th^  Edinburgh 
Review y  proposed  a  theory  of  history,  that  it  should  be  pictorial 
and  vivid,  that  a  writer  could  produce  these  effects  without  vio- 
lating truth,  that  there  was  no  reason  why  a  history  should  not 
be  as  entertaining  as  a  historical  novel,  and  that  even  if  it  were 
amusing,  it  need  not  be,  for  that  fact,  any  the  less  accurate, 
dignified,  or  useful.  To  illustrate  his  theory  of  historical  writ- 
ing, Macaulay  published,  between  1848  and  1855,  a  four  vol- 
ume History  0}  England  from  the  Accession  of  James  II,  which 
he  said  he  expected  to  take  the  place  of  the  novel  upon  the 
drawing-room  table  of  young  ladies.  These  delightful  volumes 
did  not  quite  succeed  in  doing  that,  but,  along  with  his  Essays , 
they  did  furnish  the  main  equipment  for  serious  conversation 
among  great  numbers  of  people  in  the  mid- Victorian  days. 
They  are  most  interesting  even  to-day. 

Grote.  —  George  Grote  was  a  banker,  as  was  the  novelist 
Joseph  Henry  Shorthouse,  and  the  American  poet,  Edmund 
Clarence  Stedman,  and  as  recently  was  Kenneth  Grahame, 


THE  VICTORIAN  ERA  255 

Secretary  of  the  Bank  of  England  and  the  author  of  the  charm- 
ing Golden  Age  and  Wind  in  the  Willows.  Grote^s  History  oj 
Greece  is  almost  an  argument  in  favor  of  the  Liberal  party  in 
Great  Britain,  for  it  is  all  written  with  its  interest  centering 
about  the  democratic  political  institutions  of  the  Greek  city- 
states.  But  it  makes  the  writings  of  the  ancient  Greek  prose 
writers,  which  were  previously  but  school  textbooks,  appear 
to  be  vivid  and  stimulating  pictures  and  arguments  favoring 
the  growth  of  liberal  movements  in  the  politics  of  the  world. 
Grote  was  most  careful  and  scholarly,  but  his  style  is  rather  too 
abstruse  and  philosophic  to  permit  his  being  easily  read. 

Freeman.  —  A  History  oj  the  'Norman  Conquest  was  writ- 
ten by  Edward  Augustus  Freeman  and  published  in  1876. 
It  is  a  momentous  work.  It  is  a  most  painstaking  record, 
and  tolerant  and  broad  in  its  opinions  and  points  of  view. 
Freeman  wrote  scores  of  other  works,  but  none  equal  to  this 
one.  It  is  said  that  he  thought  so  little  of  the  principles 
upon  which  most  historians  divided  history  into  periods  and 
epochs  that  he  once  remarked  that  he  could  never  decide 
whether  modern  history  began  with  Napoleon  the  First  or  with 
the  Call  of  Abraham. 

Green.  —  John  Richard  Green  was  a  pupil  of  Freeman's.  He 
might  be  said  to  be  a  pupil  of  Macaulay's,  too,  for  he  filled  the 
pages  of  his  histories  with  interesting  social  and  literary  matters, 
as  well  as  with  those  that  were  political.  The  most  popular 
work  of  its  kind  that  has  ever  been  written  is  Green's  A  Short 
History  of  the  English  People. 

Froude.  —  James  Anthony  Froude's  History  of  England  from 
the  Fall  of  Wolsey  to  the  Destruction  of  the  Spanish  Armada,  in 
twelve  volumes,  was  completed  in  1870.  It  had  a  tremendous 
popularity  with  the  general  public,  but  was  attacked  by  many 
other  historians  for  its  inaccuracies.    The  French  specialists 


256  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

in  historical  study  speak  even  yet  of  "  Froude's  disease  "  when 
they  refer  to  a  historian  who  is  inaccurate  in  details.  But 
Froude  was  a  wonderful  writer,  intensely  patriotic,  richly  en- 
dowed with  the  power  to  make  a  historical  character  appear  to 
be  really  living,  and  gifted  with  the  ability,  and  constantly 
employing  it,  to  make  the  reader  remember  the  very  words 
he  uses. 

American  historians.  —  Of  the  American  historians,  William 
H.  Prescott  chose  the  most  picturesque  subjects,  and  wrote  of 
them  with  great  charm.  History  of  the  Conquest  of  Mexico,  His- 
tory of  the  Conquest  of  Peru,  and  History  of  the  Reign  of  Philip 
II,  were  his  titles.  John  Lothrop  Motley's  Rise  of  the  Dutch 
Republic  and  his  History  of  the  United  Netherlands  are 
thorough  works,  filled  with  intense  dramatic  interest,  though 
not  so  artistically  constructed  as  those  of  Prescott.  Francis 
Parkman  has  to  his  credit  many  histories  of  rare  interest,  eight 
of  which  are.  The  Conspiracy  of  Pontiac,  Montcalm  and  Wolfe, 
Pioneers  of  France  in  the  New  World,  The  Jesuits  in  North 
America,  La  Salle  and  the  Discovery  of  the  Great  West,  The  Old 
Regime  in  Canada,  Count  Frontenac  and  New  France  under 
Louis  XIV,  and  A  Half -Century  of  Conflict.  The  dates  of 
publication  range  from  1851  to  1892.  The  Oregon  Trail,  a 
volume  containing  a  series  of  magazine  articles  concerning 
travels  and  adventures  among  the  Indians  of  the  North- 
west, preceded '  all  these.  The  Old  Regime  in  Canada 
is  the  most  thoughtful  of  Parkman's  histories.  George 
Bancroft's  work  shows  a  scrupulous  investigator  and  thinker, 
though  not  a  very  attractive  narrator.  His  History  of  the 
United  States  in  ten  volumes  comes  down  no  farther  than 
through  the  Revolution.  Two  additional  volumes,  entitled 
History  of  the  Formation  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States^ 
completed  his  labors. 


tHE  VICTORIAN  ERA  257 

III.  Prose  Fiction 

The  novel.  —  The  novel  presents  to  its  readers  personalities 
in  private  life  more  than  elsewhere.  No  quality  in  the  writer  of 
the  novel  is  of  greater  value  than  the  quality  of  sympathy. 
This  is  the  reason  so  many  women  have  been  excellent  writers 
of  the  novel.  It  is  because  sympathy  is  more  fully  brought 
out  in  the  presence  of  trying  situations  that  the  novel  does 
not  give  as  much  of  all  the  details  of  life  as  it  might,  but  con- 
fines itself  to  those  that  are  best  adapted  to  calling  forth  the 
sympathetic  resources  of  the  writer  and  appealing  most  deeply 
to  the  same  resources  in  the  reader.  Of  course,  there  are  a 
few  "  novels  "  that  coldly  detail  insignificant  things  in  the 
lives  of  men  and  women,  relating  the  events  with  precision  and 
fullness  as  if  the  author  must  be  as  accurate  as  a  chemist 
and  as  complete  as  an  annalist.  Such  books  are  often  called 
realistic  novels,  but  they  are,  more  often  than  not,  only  socio- 
logical studies,  having  their  uses  as  such  studies,  but  seldom 
giving  the  pleasure  of  an  artistic  product.^ 

The  early  Victorian  novelists.  —  Among  the  earlier  of  the 
novelists  of  the  Victorian  era  was  Benjamin  Disraeli,  who  be- 
came Lord  Beaconsfield,  prime  minister,  and  creator  of  the 
Queen's  authority  over  Egypt  and  India.  The  two  ablest  of 
his  novels  were  Coningsby  and  Sybil,  the  first  published  in  1844, 
the  second  in  1845.  In  them  the  oriental  imagination  of  the 
great  Jew  runs  riot.  But  a  much  more  important  work  than  any 
of  his  appeared  from  the  pen  of  Charlotte  Bronte,  in  1847,  ^ 
novel  then  widely  read,  and  still  read  with  a  sense  of  startled 
wonder  and  fascinated  interest,  even  in  this  twentieth  century. 
This  book  was  named  Jane  Eyre.    It  is  a  romantic  story,  yet 

1  The  student  should  at  this  point  refer  to  the  estimate  of  the  novel  by 
Mrs.  Clara  Reeve  on  page  175. 
s 


258  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

strongly  human  in  the  depth  and  sincerity  of  the  passion  it 
depicts.  All  readers  who  are  attracted  to  Charlotte  Bronte  by 
this  significant  work  are  not  equally  pleased  when  they  turn  to 
her  Shirley  or  to  Villette;  though  to  one  interested  in  human 
nature  and  life  and  the  products  of  human  art,  Villette  appeals 
as  a  most  interesting  and  subtle  criticism  of  these  things.  Char- 
lotte Bronte  had  two  sisters,  Anne  and  Emily,  who  also  were 
novelists,  and  poets,  too,  but  they  had  not  her  power  of  insight 
nor  her  mastery  of  expression^  George  Borrow  wrote  a  volume 
of  travel  and  autobiography  entitled  The  Bible  in  Spain,  which 
in  a  unique  way  tells  the  story  of  a  colporteur's  work  in  that 
country.  Two  of  his  novels,  Lavengro  and  The  Romany  Rye, 
published  in  the  fifties,  are  highly  imaginative,  and  are  not  unlike 
his  book  already  mentioned,  in  the  constant  shifting  from  vision- 
land  to  land  of  fact.  Readers  who  love  the  oddities  of  literature 
are  very  enthusiastic  over  Borrow. 

Mid-century  names.  —  Other  authors,  aside  from  the  three 
great  ones,  Dickens,  Thackeray,  and  George  Eliot,  whose  work 
centers  about  the  mid-century,  were  Mrs.  Gaskell,  Hughes, 
Blackmore,  Collins,  Trollope,  Dodgson  (Carroll),  Reade,  Kings- 
ley,  and  Shorthouse.  Meredith,  Stevenson,  and  Hardy  worked 
within  the  later  years  of  the  Victorian  era,  Stevenson  dying  in 
1894.  However,  before  giving  some  details  concerning  any  of 
the  minor  Victorians  mentioned  above  as  mid-century  writers, 
we  should  take  up  the  work  of  the  three  great  novelists  of  the 
time:  Charles  Dickens,  William  Makepeace  Thackeray,  and 
George  Eliot. 

I.    The  Great  Trio 

Dickens.  —  Charles  Dickens  was  born  in  181 2  and  died  in 
1870.  One  comes  close  to  the  facts  of  his  life  in  the  story  of 
David  Copperfield.    His  novels  began  with  Pickwick  Papers  in 


Charles  Dickens 


THE  VICTORIAN  ERA  259 

1 83  7 ,  and  ended  with  Our  Mutual  Friend  in  1 865 .  Many  of  them 
are  like  those  of  Smollett  in  the  eighteenth  century,  in  so  far  as 
their  stories  have  little  plot  and  in  that  episodes  are  inserted 
whenever  it  occurs  to  the  author  that  one  might  be  interesting. 
He  was  also  like  Smollett  in  his  realistic,  free-spoken  manner, 
his  mixture  of  comic  and  tragic,  but  unlike  him  in  that  Dickens 
was  never  coarse.  Dickens  was  a  past-master  at  the  art  of  casting 
a  glamor  over  all  characters  and  all  events  of  which  he  wrote. 
No  other  novelist  has  so  many  comic  characters  to  his  credit ; 
at  least,  so  many  who  excite  the  uncontrolled  merriment  of  his 
readers.  There  is  no  writer,  excepting  Shakespeare,  who  has 
created  so  many  characters  whose  names  are  widely  known. 
Not  that  he  creates  great  characters.  Perhaps  there  is  not 
one  in  all  his  books  who  is  great,  though  there  are  many 
readers  who  think  of  Sidney  Carton,  in  A  Tale  of  Two  Cities^ 
as  one  of  the  loftiest  fictitious  characters  in  prose  fiction.  Others 
consider  that  book  as  a  sentimental  melodrama,  and  the  char- 
acter of  Sidney  Carton  sniffers  accordingly  in  their  estimation. 

To  name  a  small  number  even  of  the  characters,  many  of 
whom  are  little  more  than  caricatures,  in  Dickens's  great 
gallery,  is  unnecessary,  for  every  one  who  has  read  him  knows 
them  well  and  intimately.  These  personages  are  undying  in 
the  memory.  Nearly  all  of  them,  though,  are  symbols  rather 
than  real  individuals.  Pecksniff  is  the  hypocrite,  Quilp  is  the 
cruel  man,  Jonas  Chuzzlewit  is  the  avaricious  man,  and  so  on, 
through  the  long  list  of  them.  In  the  days  of  Ben  Jonson,  ava- 
rice and  cruelty  and  hypocrisy  would  have  been  written  of  as 
''Humours";  in  Dickens  they  are  persons  in  the  form  of 
caricatures.  Dickens  is  very  affected  in  his  style.  This 
affectation  does  not  limit  itself  to  peculiarities  of  word  or  of 
phrase,  but  extends  itself  to  large  passages,  and  appears  chiefly 
in    those    passages  which  are   descriptive.    In  the  passages 


26o  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

which  describe  "  the  moaning  of  the  sea,  the  freaks  of  the 
wind,  the  fluttering  of  a  leaf,"  or  even  the  death  of  a 
child,  Dickens  is  constantly  employing  what  Ruskin 
described  as  the  "  pathetic  fallacy,"  that  is,  a  picturing  of  a 
falseness  in  our  impressions  of  things.  Ruskin  said  that  the 
feeling  that  leads  us  to  speak  of  such  things  as  "  the  cruel 
crawling  foam  "  is  ignoble  in  so  far  as  there  is  not  cause  enough 
for  us  to  think  of  it  as  cruel  and  crawling,  but  noble  when  it  is 
justified  by  the  strength  of  its  cause.  The  farther  we  get 
away  from  Dickens,  it  appears  more  and  more  that  this  feel- 
ing was  not,  in  all  the  force  with  which  he  expressed  it,  justified 
by  the  facts  in  relation  to  the  thing  described.  Hence  he  seems 
very  affected. 

No  careful  reader  of  Dickens  is  likely  to  agree  with  any  other 
careful  reader  of  him  in  naming  the  chief  of  his  novels.  We 
may  venture  to  say  that  they  are  Pickwick  Papers,  Nicholas 
Nickleby,  Old  Curiosity  Shop,  Barnaby  Rudge,  Oliver  Twist, 
Martin  Chuzzlemt,  David  Copperfield,  Dombey  and  Son,  Tale 
of  Two  Cities,  Great  Expectations,  Our  Mutual  Friend,  Hard 
Times,  and  Edwin  Drood,  the  last  named  being  an  unfinished 
book  published  five  years  after  his  death,  and  affording  much 
rather  fruitless  discussion  as  to  the  final  working  out  of  its  un- 
finished plot.  Of  all  these,  Pickwick  Papers  has  been  the  most 
popular,  David  Copperfield  the  most  respected,  A  Tale  of  Two 
Cities  most  acrimoniously  discussed,  and  Edwin  Drood  most 
interesting  to  puzzle-hunters.  Perhaps  Nicholas  Nickleby  has 
been  most  enjoyed  by  young  readers.  Ruskin  thought  Hard 
Times  the  most  important  of  them  all,  chiefly  because  of  its 
social  insight. 

One  who  can  get  away  from  himself  in  any  measure  in  his  read- 
ing will  secure  rich  enjoyment  from  the  incessantly  humorous  de- 
picting of  the  peculiarities  which  are  common  to  human  beings 


THE  VICTORIAN  ERA  261 

everywhere,  though  in  Dickens  nearly  always  much  exaggerated. 
Dickens  accomplished  much  for  the  humanitarian  movements 
which  were  attracting  public  interest  in  England,  especially 
those  movements  that  were  associated  with  the  care  of  children, 
the  reforming  of  debtors'  prisons,  the  conduct  of  workhouses, 
and  the  administration  of  schools.  It  is  difficult  to  speak  criti- 
cally of  a  writer  whose  popularity  has  been  so  great.  Millions 
of  people  still  love  Charles  Dickens,  and  his  name  will  for  a 
long  time  to  come  be  one  "  to  conjure  with." 

Thackeray.  —  William  Makepeace  Thackeray  was  born  in 
181 1  and  died  in  1863.  His  novels  began  with  Vanity  Fair,  pub- 
lished in  1848,  and  ended  with  The  Virginians,  published  in  1859, 
though,  like  Dickens,  he  left  one  unfinished  novel,  Denis  Duval, 
a  very  interesting  fragment.  Thackeray's  volumes,  novels 
and  all,  number  twenty-six.  All  are  good.  He  was  a  great 
writer.  Frederick  Harrison  says  that  his  "  mastery  over  style 
—  a  style  at  once  simple,  pure,  nervous,  flexible,  pathetic,  and 
graceful  —  places  Thackeray  among  the  very  greatest  masters 
of  English  prose,  and  undoubtedly  as  the  most  certain  and  fault- 
less of  all  the  prose  writers  of  the  Victorian  age."  He  also  says, 
"  I  know  nothing  in  English  literature  more  powerful  than  those 
last  lines  of  the  thirty-second  chapter  of  Vanity  Fair.''^  Of 
one  scene  in  this  book  Harrison  says,  "  There  is  in  all  fiction  no 
single  scene  more  vivid,  more  true,  more  burnt  into  the  memory, 
more  tragic.  And  with  what  noble  simplicity,  with  what  inci- 
sive reticence,  with  what  subtle  anatomy  of  the  human  heart, 
is  it  recorded."  And  yet  the  tragic  scenes  and  the  pathetic 
ones  in  Vanity  Fair  are  no  more  perfect  than  those  that  are 
charged  with  humor.  We  have  already  called  attention  to 
the  fact  that  Walter  Pater  thought  Henry  Esmond  the 
greatest  of  all  novels.  M.  Taine  said  of  it,  ''  Thackeray  has 
not  written  a  less  popular  or  a  more  beautiful  book."     It  is,  in 


262  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

the  use  of  language,  almost  miraculously  artistic ;  but  its  greater 
remoteness  from  our  own  times  in  its  subject  matter  has  not 
gained  it  the  popularity  which  has  been  achieved  by  Vanity 
Fair.  Becky  Sharp,  one  of  the  characters  in  Vanity  Faify  is  one 
of  the  most  triumphant  creations  in  modern  fiction ;  and  the 
book  has  no  peer  in  its  kind,  taken  all  in  all,  unless  it  be  Fielding's 
Tom  Jones.  It  is  often  said  that  Vanity  Fair  is  a  picture  of  the 
world.  It  is  not  that,  any  more  than  "  Vanity  Fair  "  in  The 
Pilgrim^s  Progress  is  the  world.  It  is  a  picture  of  that  part 
of  the  world  called  "  society,"  and  it  is  a  nearly  perfect  one, 
though  Thackeray  is  a  little  one-sided,  for,  though  himself 
genial  and  whole-heartedly  generous,  he  presents  no  characters 
that  are  wholly  fine-natured.  But  it  was  his  purpose,  by 
the  presentation  of  the  follies  and  the  weaknesses  of  man- 
kind, thereby  to  emphasize  by  contrast  those  things  which 
were  lacking  in  "  society." 

Thackeray  was  a  great  preacher.  But  he  had  his  limitations. 
He  died  at  the  age  of  fifty-two,  as  Shakespeare  did ;  but  while 
none  ever  questions  that  Shakespeare's  work  was  finished,  it 
would  seem  that  Thackeray,  had  he  lived,  might  have  become  a 
more  complete  master  of  the  human  heart  and  might  have,  in 
other  words,  ceased  to  offend  those  who  care  not  to  follow  a 
great  imagination  into  the  darker  sides  of  life  to  the  exclusion, 
in  very  large  measure,  of  the  bright.  Fielding  was  Thackeray's 
master,  as  Smollett  was  the  master  of  Dickens.  It  is  difficult 
to  determine  whether  or  not  the  pupils  did  not  excel  their 
masters.  Thackeray  was  not  so  good  a  plot-maker  as  Fielding, 
but  he  was  a  better  stylist,  though  his  employing  a  better  style 
was  due  to  the  general  progress  in  English  prose  rather  than 
to  the  finer  artistic  ability  of  the  individual  writer. 

Other  greatly  significant  novels  by  Thackeray,  in  addition 
to  those  already  described,  were  Pendennis,  The   Newcomes, 


THE   VICTORIAN  ERA  263 

and  The  Virginians.  Strong  and  powerful  these  are  to  adults, 
and  even  very  young  readers  enjoy  them ;  indeed,  often  enjoy 
them  more  than  they  do  the  two  greater  ones.  It  should  be  said 
here  that  the  student  of  fiction  should  acquaint  himself  with 
the  instructive  and  entertaining  work  by  Thackeray  entitled 
The  English  Humorists  of  the  Eighteenth  Century.  Further- 
more, many  of  his  novels  are  worthy  of  study  for  the  charm  of 
the  letters  which  he  makes  his  characters  write. 

George  Eliot.  —  Marian  Evans,  who  assumed  the  pen-name 
of  George  Eliot,  was  born  in  181 9  and  died  in  1880.  Of  this  third 
writer  in  the  great  trio,  the  famous  German  critic,  Edmond 
Scherer,  said  that  for  her  "  was  reserved  the  honor  of  writing  the 
most  perfect  novels  ever  known."  This  is  but  one  of  many 
failures  made  by  critics  who  are  not  English  when  judging  the 
product  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  writer.  The  statement  is,  of  course, 
exaggerated.  But  she  was  a  great  writer,  greater  as  a  writer 
of  prose  fiction  than  any  writers  in  her  era  were  great  as  poets, 
excepting  Tennyson  and  Browning,  and  than  any  writers  of  prose 
were  great  as  essayists,  excepting  Macaulay,  Ruskin,  and 
Carlyle. 

Between  her  earliest  work.  Scenes  of  Clerical  Life  (a  volume  of 
short  narrative  sketches  or  novelettes),  and  her  last  novel, 
Daniel  Deronda,  there  is  the  difference  between  a  spontaneous 
outburst  of  self-expression  and  a  labored  and  mechanical 
artistry.  It  is  this  difference  that  causes  her  work  to  fall  into 
three  groups :  the  first,  composed  of  Scenes  of  Clerical  Life  and 
Adam  Bede;  the  second,  of  The  Mill  on  the  Floss  and  Silas 
Marner;  and  the  third,  of  Romola,  Felix  Holt,  Middlemarch, 
and  Daniel  Deronda. 

The  novelettes  and  Adam  Bede  are  based  upon  the  writer's 
own  personal  experience,  and  breathe  directly  her  mind  and 
heart.     Adam  Bede  has  less  of  herself  or  her  immediate  family 


264  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

within  it  than  has  The  Mill  on  the  Floss,  but  it  is  a  book 
which  her  whole  nature  impelled  her  to  write.  The  novels  of 
the  second  group  reveal  their  author  divided  between  life 
and  art.  The  Mill  on  the  Floss  is  partly  autobiographic. 
One  almost  would  say  that  no  other  book  quite  so  well  ex- 
presses the  yearnings  and  misgivings  which  people  hardly 
realize,  or  at  least  unwillingly  acknowledge,  to  exist  in  their 
lives.  In  both  books  of  the  second  group  there  stands  forth 
the  author  as  an  earnest  artist  striving  to  do  a  perfect  piece 
of  work.  In  workmanship,  they  are  almost  perfect ;  but  they 
invite  study  as  pieces  of  fine  craftsmanship  and  hence  are 
perhaps  not  so  finely  artistic  as  they  would  be  if  they  could 
be  accepted  by  one  as  he  accepts  the  miracle  of  the  snow  or 
the  coming  of  the  spring,  without  analysis,  without  conscious- 
ness of  the  labor  that  produced  them.  The  third  group  is  domi- 
nated by  the  workman,  rather  than  by  the  thinking  and  feeling 
woman,  or  than  by  the  woman  plus  the  workman. 

The  growth  from  a  kind  of  lyric  expressiveness  to  rigid  artistry 
was  due  not  alone  to  the  fact  that  George  Eliot  desired  reputation 
as  an  artistic  workman,  but  also  to  the  fact  that  she  desired 
most  strongly  to  impress  herself  upon  the  world  as  a  philosophic 
moralist.  The  combination  of  the  desire  to  be  an  accomplished 
artist  and  the  desire  to  be  a  great  teacher  resulted  in  great 
books.  But  they  are  great  in  other  ways  than  in  the  enjoyment 
they  carry  to  their  readers.  They  are  ponderous  in  their  style, 
noticeably  more  so  as  one  passes  from  Romola  on  through 
Daniel  Deronda;  and  they  gradually  became  so  weighty  with 
fact  that  one  who  may  be  charmed  with  the  wonderful  picture 
of  fifteenth-century  Italy  in  Romola  is  likely,  if  he  be  looking 
for  enjoyment,  to  become  wearied  before  completing  those  books 
that  follow  Romola. 

It  is  impossible  to  find  critics  agreeing  when  they  discuss  the 


THE  VICTORIAN  ERA  265 

works  of  this  author.  Each  one  of  her  novels  has  been  said  to 
be  the  greatest  of  them  all,  with  the  exception  of  Felix  Holt. 
That  book,  despite  some  fine  chapters,  is  uniformly  considered 
of  the  least  consequence  of  all  of  them.  George  Eliot  was  forty 
years  of  age  when  she  wrote  Adam  Bede.  This  book  is  strong, 
therefore,  because  it  is  the  record  of  the  emotions  and  thought 
of  its  author  when  they  were  at  their  full.  The  Mill  on  the  Floss, 
even  with  all  its  pathos  and  its  humor,  is  one  of  the  greatest  of 
tragic  novels  in  the  language,  Silas  Marner  is  exquisitely  deft 
in  its  workmanship,  ranking  with  some  of  the  novels  of  Jane 
Austen  and  of  Thomas  Hardy  as  the  product  of  high  art.  It 
is  quaint  and  simple,  yet  rich  with  power  and  with  that  sort 
of  suggestion  which  comes  from  the  sense  the  writer  imparts 
of  having  much  more  in  reserve  that  she  might  have  said. 

George  Eliot  is  said  to  have  read  more  than  three  hundred 
books  upon  the  life  and  history  of  the  fifteenth  century  before 
she  ventured  to  take  up  the  writing  of  Romola.  Despite  the 
fact  that  this  book  was  published  in  1863,  only  two  years  after 
Silas  Marner y  George  Eliot  said,  "  I  began  it  a  young  woman  — , 
I  finished  it  an  old  woman."  The  historical  background,  with 
the  great  tragic  figure  of  Savonarola  standing  out  boldly 
upon  it,  and  the  enmeshment  of  Tito  with  Romola,  with  Tessa, 
with  Baldasarre,  and  with  the  State,  make  so  many-hued  and 
highly  complex  a  story  that  its  appreciation  is  a  test  of  the  cul- 
ture of  the  reader.  Perhaps  the  book  is  too  intricate  and  too 
erudite.  It  is  its  author's  greatest  efort,  if  not  her  greatest  novel. 
By  1866  George  Eliot  was  wholly  given  over  to  "views"  and  to 
the  study  of  problems.  In  that  year  Felix  Holt,  the  least  strong 
of  her  novels,  was  published.  Middlemarch  came  next,  and  is 
as  conspicuous  for  its  artistic  defects  as  Silas  Marner  for  its  ar- 
tistic excellence.  There  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  fact  that  it 
was  a  powerfully  philosophic  mind  which  brought  forth  this 


266  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

book,  but  the  book  is  painfully  elaborate,  even  tedious  in  its 
almost  interminable  details.  Even  so,  some  have  thought  it 
preeminent  among  her  works.  Daniel  Deronda  is  also  a  thought- 
ful and  very  serious  work,  but  the  purpose  to  which  it  lent  it- 
self, the  establishment  of  a  sort  of  new  Judaism,  is  so  artificially 
developed  that  the  book  becomes  dry  and  tiresome  even  to  many 
of  those  who  glorify  the  gifted  writer  of  Adam  Bede  and  The 
Mill  on  the  Floss. 

It  is  quite  likely  that  George  Eliot  will  always  hold  a  place 
higher  in  the  scale  of  literature  than  Charlotte  Bronte,  but 
those  who  set  power  of  insight  and  charm  of  simple  narrative 
art  above  weightiness  of  material  will  accord  her  a  place  much 
less  high  than  that  of  Jane  Austen. 

2.   Minor  Novelists 

When  we  pass  from  the  notable  trio,  —  Dickens,  Thackeray, 
George  Eliot  —  to  the  minor  novelists  who  were  their  contem- 
poraries or  who  followed  them,  we  are  by  no  means  taking  a  seri- 
ously downward  step.  Many  of  them  have,  as  entertainers,  at 
least,  not  fallen  at  all  below  any  one  unless  it  is  Dickens,  of  the 
supreme  three.  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Gaskell,  who  wrote  a  biography 
of  Charlotte  Bronte,  has  delighted  the  gay  and  the  serious  alike 
with  her  Cranford,  a  pleasing  story  of  village  life.  Her  Cousin 
Phyllis  is  one  of  the  best  of  examples  of  the  borderland  type 
between  the  novel  and  the  short-story,  namely,  the  novelette. 
Thomas  Hughes  has  inspired  succeeding  generations  of  school- 
boys with  the  spirit  of  Rugby  in  his  Tom  Brown's  School-Days. 
His  Tom  Brown  at  Oxford  has  been  only  slightly  less  popular. 
Richard  Blackmore's  Lorna  Doone,  published  in  1869,  is  more 
real  to  countless  youthful  readers  than  nearly  all  of  the  actual 
history  which  they  read.  For  them  no  landscape  has  stronger 
actuality  than  that  in  Blackmore's  descriptions  of  the  Doone 


THE  VICTORIAN  ERA  267 

country.  And,  though  there  is  much  of  false  excitement,  yet 
upon  the  whole  the  book  is  most  sane  and  healthful. 

Just  after  the  turn  of  the  mid-century  came  the  astonishing 
stories  by  Wilkie  Collins,  —  The  Woman  in  White,  No  Name, 
and  The  Moonstone.  The  last-named  is  the  best  of  the  three. 
G.  K.  Chesterton  calls  it  "  the  best  detective  tale  in  the  world.'* 
It  is,  however,  as  are  all  of  Wilkie  Collins's  works,  quite  mechan- 
ical in  the  development  of  its  plot.  His  novels  are  all  "  plotted  " 
in  a  quite  literal  sense.  Nevertheless  they  are  the  finest 
examples  of  Victorian  supernaturalism  in  fiction.  Anthony 
Trollope  is  neither  so  finely  naturalistic  as  Jane  Austen  nor 
so  coarsely  realistic  as  a  number  of  present-day  novelists.  He 
clearly  saw  individual  characters  in  English  life,  and  he  thought 
it  his  duty  to  follow  the  British  prevailing  custom  to  teach 
morals  from  their  acts.  Barchester  Towers  is  read  more  than 
any  other  one  of  his  thirty-odd  novels.  Lewis  Carroll's  Alice 
in  Wonderland  and  Alice  Through  the  Looking-Glass  are  not  to 
be  called  novels,  but  are  too  entertaining  to  be  omitted  from  an 
account  of  nineteenth-century  fiction. 

Another  book  which  belongs  to  the  middle  years  of  the 
Victorian  era  is  John  Inglesant  by  Joseph  Henry  Shorthouse,  a 
most  thoughtful  and  intense  novel  dealing  with  the  Jesuit  in 
England  and  in  Italy  during  the  age  of  the  Stuarts. 

Reade,  and  Kingsley.  —  Charles  Reade  and  Charles  Kingsley 
are  worthy  the  distinction  of  being  thought  of  separately  from 
the  other  minor  writers  of  their  time.  They  may  not  be  read 
with  greater  eagerness  than  those  just  mentioned,  but  their 
works  are  distinctive  for  having  more  of  literary  quality  than 
can  be  found  among  the  novels  by  all  their  contemporaries  in 
England,  excepting  the  immortal  trio  to  whom  we  have 
given  the  greater  space.  Both  Reade  and  Kingsley  wrote  in 
a  manner  that  was  vigorous  and  vivid,  due,  in  the  case  of 


268  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

each  of  them,  to  the  intrepid  energy  of  their  convictions  and 
to  the  directness  with  which  they  saw  the  life  which  they  set 
out  to  describe  and  narrate. 

Charles  Reade  was  roused  to  anger  against  the  insipidity 
with  which,  as  he  thought,  his  predecessors  and  contemporaries 
were  handling  the  natural  impulses  of  men  both  as  individuals 
and  in  their  social  relationships.  He  therefore  applied  his  great 
talent  to  the  remedying  of  this  evil  in  the  world  of  authorship 
and  in  life.  Griffith  Gaunt  is  a  subtle  psychological  study  in  the 
passion  of  jealousy ;  Put  Yourself  in  his  Place,  a  treatment  of 
trades-unions ;  Hard  Cash,  of  lunatic  asylums ;  and  Ifs  Never 
Too  Late  to  Mend,  of  prison  administration.  But  the  novel 
that  stands  by  itself  and  far  above  all  others  of  his,  is  The 
Cloister  and  the  Hearth,  a  historical  novel  into  which  are  woven 
the  results  of  exhaustive  research  and  painstaking  thinking,  — 
and  it  is  a  unique  and  fascinating  story.  Its  hero  is  the  father 
of  Erasmus;  the  time  is  the  fifteenth  century.  Even  with 
all  its  accuracy  to  the  life  of  that  day,  the  book  thrills  the 
reader  with  its  breathless  adventures.  In  preparation  for  it, 
Reade  is  said  to  have  read  "  whole  libraries."  His  Peg  W offing- 
ton  is  a  delightfully  quaint  story  of  stage  life,  and  is  the  best 
constructed,  from  the  artistic  point  of  view,  of  all  his  novels. 

Charles  Kingsley  was  as  energetically  hostile  to  the  evils 
of  his  day  as  Reade,  and  even  more  hopeful  of  the  success  of 
applied  remedies.  A  better  life  on  earth  was  his  watchword ; 
though  he  had  full  knowledge  that  the  struggle  for  it  would 
be  long.  His  novels  overflow  with  eagerness  for  a  kind  of  mus- 
cular Christianity  and  intelligent  socialism.  Alton  Locke  and 
Yeast  are  the  novels  dealing  with  social  conditions ;  the  first, 
among  the  laboring  masses  in  crowded  cities,  the  second,  among 
agricultural  laborers.  These  two  books  are  not  much  read 
to-day,  partly  because  they  were  not  well  written,  partly  because 


THE  VICTORIAN  ERA  269 

they  were  rather  rash  in  many  of  their  statements,  although 
written  from  first-hand  information,  and  partly  because  they 
have  been  superseded  by  other  similar  books  of  life  nearer  in 
point  of  time  to  us.  Westward  Hoi  and  Hypatia,  however,  are 
permanent  contributions  to  the  literature  of  English  fiction. 
Westward  Ho!  is  a  graphic  and  stirring  account  of  the  buc- 
caneer spirit  of  the  age  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  and  one  of  the 
very  best  of  boys'  books,  though,  historically  considered,  only 
"  a  good,  thundering  honest  lie."  Hypatia  is  much  more 
true  to  the  facts  of  history.  It  is  a  historical  and  philosophi- 
cal narrative,  presenting  the  sublime  death  struggle  between 
Greek  Paganism  and  Christianity  during  the  fifth  century. 
Many  a  reader  has  thought  it  the  greatest  book  he  has  ever 
read.  It  has  a  fascination  and  a  profoundly  impressive 
moving  power  upon  certain  individuals  that  make  it  a  book 
to  be  taken  into  serious  account  in  the  making  up  of  a  list  of  the 
world's  greatest  books.  The  world  would  be  better  if  a  Reade 
and  a  Kingsley  could  be  born  into  it  every  half  or  three  quarters 
of  a  century. 

3.    A  Trio  of  the  Later  Years  of  the  Victorian  Era    ' 

Stevenson.  —  Robert- Louis  Stevenson  was  born  in  1850  and 
died  in  1894,  his  death  coming  just  within  the  era  we  have 
called  that  of  the  Present-day.  His  name  is  one  we  are  inclined 
to  speak  with  reverence.  His  work  is,  almost  entirely,  whole- 
some, and  was  produced  under  conditions  that  made  work  a 
heroic  task,  for  he  was  in  precarious  health  for  years.  With  a 
wealth  of  verse,  of  novels,  short-stories,  and  most  charming 
essays  left  behind  him,  he  died,  as  the  above  dates  indicate,  at 
the  age  of  forty-four.  Stevenson  could  not  write  of  physical 
adventures  in  what  Sir  Walter  Scott  called  "  the  bow-wow 


270  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

Strain,"  nor  was  he  a  profound  psychologist ;  yet  he  succeeded 
well  at  adventures  and  at  analysis  of  man's  inner  life.  Further- 
more, though  he  suffered  greatly  from  illness,  he  sturdily  urged 
in  the  life  of  man  a  fighting  optimism  and  a  sound-minded 
humor.  Heloved  adventure  as  intensely  as  the  most  romantic- 
minded  boy  or  girl,  though  physical  adventure  was  denied  to 
him.  In  what  a  realist  would  see  as  the  most  humdrum  char- 
acters, he  would  imagine  the  most  magic  of  all  possibilities.  In 
Treasure  Island  he  wrote  the  best  boys'  book  since  Midshipman 
Easy.  All  together  he  was  the  most  interesting,  though  not  the 
most  able,  of  the  writers  whose  lives  fell  within  the  last  half  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  If  he  has  any  weaknesses, they  are  but 
two:  a  lack  of  breadth  in  the  range  of  his  sympathies  and 
a  tendency  to  crowd  his  stories  together  rather  than  to  let 
them  develop  in  an  orderly  manner  to  a  logical  conclusion,  — 
the  one  a  defect  of  nature,  the  other  a  defect  of  art.  During  his 
own  lifetime  his  critical  friends  were  divided  in  their  desires 
for  him,  some  urging  him  to  devote  himself  exclusively  to  story- 
telling, others  to  devote  himself  with  equal  exclusiveness  to 
essay-writing.  That  he  went  his  own  way  and  did  both,  his 
friends  of  the  twentieth  century,  critical  and  uncritical,  are 
grateful.  Tusitala,  or  "  teller  of  tales,"  however,  was  the  name 
given  him  by  the  natives  of  Samoa,  among  whom  his  last  days 
were  spent.  A  beautiful  Requiem  which  he  wrote  is  now 
engraved  upon  his  tomb,  — 

Under  the  wide  and  stany  sky, 
Dig  the  grave  and  let  me  lie. 
Glad  did  I  live  and  gladly  die, 

And  I  laid  me  down  with  a  will. 
This  be  the  verse  you  grave  for  me : 
Here  he  lies  where  he  longed  to  be  I 
tlonw  is  the  sailor,  home  from  the  sea^ 

And  the  hunter  home  from  tlie  hill. 


THE   VICTORIAN  ERA  271 

Stevenson  was  a  charming  and  stimulating  essayist,  and  a 
great  short-story  writer.  The  features  of  his  work  in  these  Hnes 
will  be  discussed  later  in  this  chapter.  He  was  not  a  great  novel- 
ist, although  had  Weir  of  Hermiston  been  finished  as  he  had 
planned,  that  book  might  have  required  us  to  call  him  one  of 
the  foremost  novel  writers  of  his  century.  His  power  of  char- 
acter creation  seemed  in  Weir  of  Hermiston  to  have  risen  as 
high  as  that  of  Dickens  or  Thackeray ;  but  he  died  before  the 
book  could  be  finished.  His  completed  novels  are  Treasure 
Island,  a  master  boy's  book  of  adventure,  though  for  some 
squeamish  adults  a  trifle  too  much  given  to  the  shedding  of 
blood;  Kidnapped;  The  Master  of  Ballantrae;  and  David 
Balfour;  all  of  them  excellent  in  their  character  portrayal, 
but  chiefly  to  be  thought  of  as  stories  of  tense  and  exciting 
adventure. 

Meredith.  —  The  first  of  George  Meredith's  books  which 
can  be  called  a  novel  appeared  in  1859.  It  was  The  Ordeal  of 
Richard  Fever  el.  Up  to  and  including  the  year  1890  he  pub- 
lished ten  other  novels :  Evan  Harrington,  Sandra  Belloni, 
Vittoria,  Harry  Richmond,  Rhoda  Fleming,  Beauchamp^s  Career, 
The  Egoist,  The  Tragic  Comedians,  Diana  of  the  Crossways,  and 
One  of  Our  Conquerors.  Of  these  ten  none  has  had  so  many 
readers  as  The  Ordeal  of  Richard  Feverel.  The  best  known  of  the 
ten  are  Rhoda  Fleming,  Beauchamp's  Career,  The  Egoist,  and 
Diana  of  the  Crossways.  We  say  "  the  best  known,"  for  Mere- 
dith has  shut  himself  out  from  the  following  of  the  so-called 
popular  reader  by  a  whimsicality  in  the  use  of  the  English 
language  which  is  more  trying  to  the  untrained  reader  than  the 
whimsicalities  of  Carlyle  or  of  Browning.  This  whimsy  consists 
not  only  in  his  love  of  putting  both  the  conversation  of  his 
characters  and  his  own  explanatory  sentence  in  the  forms 
of  aphorism  and  maxim,  but  it  often  consists  also  of  elliptical 


272  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

allusions  and  wire-drawn  allegories  which  only  a  trained  and 
rather  leisurely  reader  can  make  intelligible  to  himself.  Never- 
theless, Meredith  was  the  keenest  analyzer  of  the  invisible  life, 
in  other  words  the  greatest  psychologist,  who  wrote  fiction  in 
the  nineteenth  century.  His  mission  was  to  war  unremittingly 
against  sentimentalism  in  conventional  society.  And  yet  while 
he  certainly  does  pillory  the  sentimentalities  of  men  and  women, 
of  boys  and  girls,  too,  he  is  never  flippant.  Reality  he  calls 
"  Sacred  " ;  and  it  is  real  beauty,  real  greatness,  real  religion 
that  he  constantly  exalts,  and  urges  that  in  them  mankind  should 
place  its  unending  faith. 

Meredith  has  been  able  to  mirror  all  men  in  at  least  one  of 
his  novels.  No  human  being  can  carefully  and  thoughtfully 
read  The  Egoist  without  finding  something  of  himself  or  her- 
self there.    It  is  his  most  subtle  work. 

The  Ordeal  of  Richard  Feverel  is,  more  than  anything  else, 
a  scathing  condemnation  of  the  conventional  ideas  and  methods 
by  which  the  young  are  commonly  brought  up,  with  all  of  the 
flying  in  the  face  of  nature  which  that  bringing-up  involves. 
Few,  perhaps  no  persons,  have  ever  taken  nature  more  natur- 
ally than  has  Meredith.  There  are  in  this  book  several  of  the 
best  scenes  in  all  fiction ;  one  of  them  Stevenson  believed  to 
be  the  best  in  the  English  language  since  Shakespeare. 

Meredith  has  said  some  great  things,  a  large  number  of  them 
taken  from  what  in  Richard  Feverel  he  calls  "  The  Pilgrim's 
Script."  It  was  a  superb  thing  in  the  skeptical  age  of  the  late 
Victorian  era  to  have  said,  "  Expediency  is  man's  wisdom. 
Doing  right  is  God's."  Other  sayings  were,  "  You  talk  of  Fate ! 
It's  the  seed  we  sow  individually  or  collectively,"  **  Fools  .  .  . 
run  jabbering  of  the  irony  of  fate  to  escape  the  annoyance  of 
tracing  the  causes,"  and  "  Who  rises  from  prayer  a  better  man, 
his  prayer  is  answered." 


THE  VICTORIAN  ERA  273 

Hardy.  —  There  is  a  very  great  difference  between  George 
Meredith  and  Thomas  Hardy.  To  Meredith  there  is  as  much  of 
saving  power  in  nature  and  the  healthy  natural  life  of  man  as 
there  was  to  Wordsworth;  but  to  Hardy  nature  is  a  power 
that  is  always  entering  in  for  no  purpose  but  to  betray  and  ruin 
man.  Hardy  is  a  realist,  and  a  very  thoughtful  one,  with  the 
material  he  chooses  to  write  about  among  the  very  actual  things 
of  human  life.  But  the  real  things  he  chooses  to  write  about  are 
nearly  all  from  the  actions  of  one  "  class  "  in  life,  the  class  called 
the  peasantry.  Hardy  refuses  to  write  of  and  show  up  the  de- 
fects of  conventional  life  as  does  Meredith ;  but  he  chooses  to 
go  to  the  life  which  is  lived  naturally,  that  of  the  peasant  in  Eng- 
land. He  thinks  that  he  can  find  real  character  there  better  than 
elsewhere,  unthwarted  in  its  action  by  artificial  thought.  But, 
filled  as  his  mind  is  with  the  pessimism  of  Schopenhauer  and  the 
Russian  writers,  he  finds  that  character  is  thwarted  by  defective 
natural  laws,  by  chance,  and  by  the  hopeless  and  somber  moods 
of  nature.  Through  most  of  his  days  Hardy  has  written  of 
man  as  if  he  were  without  hope,  though  lately  there  has  been 
some  mellowing  of  this  despairing  tone. 

If  one  will  read  A  Pair  of  Blue  Eyes,  The  Return  of  the  Native, 
and  Tess  of  the  D'  Urbervilles  (all  three  written,  along  with  ten 
other  volumes,  before  1892)  for  their  stories  alone,  although 
he  will  find  in  Hardy  a  rather  sad  humorist,  yet  he  will  also  be 
certain  to  relish  keenly  the  fine  story-telling  and  the  accurate 
and  dramatic  picture-making. 

4.    The  Novel  in  America 

American  novelists  prior  to  1890.  —  At  least  six  American 
novelists  of  importance  and  high  worth  busied  themselves  during 
the  period  from  1837  to  1890  in  the  production  of  fiction  which 


274  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

seems  destined  to  survive  the  acid  test  of  time:  Nathaniel 
Hawthorne,  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe, 
Mark  Twain,  William  Dean  Howells,  and  Henry  James.  Haw- 
thorne wrote  several  novels,  of  which  three  are  of  superior 
quality.  The  Scarlet  Letter  is  the  masterpiece  among  them, 
The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables  has  delighted  even  greater  num- 
bers, and  The  Marble  Faun,  besides  being  a  good  story,  is  a  rich 
contribution  to  the  study  of  the  art  and  life  of  Italy.  Mrs. 
Stowe  is  world-famed  as  the  author  of  Uncle  Tonics  Cabin, 
though  her  Old  Town  Folks  and  The  Minister's  Wooing  do  not 
suffer  from  its  inartistic  crudities,  and  in  generations  to  come 
they  may  be  more  widely  read  than  it  will  be.  Dr.  Holmes's 
The  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table  and  The  Poet  at  the  Break- 
fast Table  would  better  be  named  "  essay-novels  '*  than  novels. 
They  are  the  table-talk  of  a  shrewd  and  humorous  observer  of 
life.  Three  other  books,  more  truly  novels,  and  two  of  them,  — 
Elsie  Venner  and  The  Guardian  Angel,  —  really  good,  came 
from  the  pen  of  this  genial  satirist.  Both  of  these  are  slightly 
abnormal  in  the  nature  of  their  subject  matter,  "  medicated 
novels  "  they  have  been  called.  Samuel  Langhorne  Clemens, 
who  assumed  the  pen-name  of  Mark  Twain,  was  the  leading 
humorist  which  America  has  produced.  It  is  doubtful  whether 
his  books  with  other  purposes  than  to  be  spontaneously  humor- 
ous will  ever  supplant  either  in  popular  or  critical  esteem  The 
Adventures  of  Tom  Sawyer  and  Huckleberry  Finn.  Of 'the 
second  of  these  he  said,  "  Anybody  who  seeks  a  moral  in  this 
story  will  be  shot." 

William  Dean  Howells  has  deliberately  chosen  to  write  of  the 
commonplace  in  life,  though  it  is  easy  enough  for  any  one  to  find 
in  one's  own  life  much  more  of  the  commonplace  than  Mr. 
Howells  has  dared  to  put  into  his  books.  It  is  not  unselected 
facts  which  he  has  woven  into  his  novels.     If  one  should  under- 


THE  VICTORIAN  ERA  275 

take  to  name  the  best  among  his  "  realistic  "  novels,  he  would 
find  it  difficult  to  get  any  other  person  to  agree  with  him, 
so  that  one  would  better  only  say  that  representative  of  his 
labors  are :  Their  Wedding  Journey,  A  Foregone  Conclusion,  The 
Lady  of  the  Aroostook,  A  Modern  Instance,  The  Rise  of  Silas 
Lapham,  The  Minister's  Charge,  A  Hazard  of  New  Fortunes, 
and  A  Boy's  Town.  Henry  James  followed  Maria  Edgeworth 
in  the  writing  of  the  so-called  international  novel,  that  is,  the 
novel  portraying  characters  abroad  in  foreign  countries.  He 
seems  to  be  interested  more  in  idle  Americans  in  Europe  than  in 
any  other  sort  of  characters.  His  novels  have  not  yet  reached 
as  wide  a  group  of  readers  as  have  his  short-stories,  his  style 
being  too  finely  analytical  to  permit  the  reader,  in  many  in- 
stances, to  go  far  in  reading  him  without  being  wearied.  Among 
his  numerous  novels  are  The  American,  The  Europeans,  Daisy 
Miller,  The  Portrait  of  a  Lady,  The  Bostonians,  and  The  Princess 
Casamissima.  American  novels  during  this  period  range  in  date 
from  1850  {The  Scarlet  Letter)  to  1890  {A  Boy's  Town). 

5.    The  Short-story 

The  short-story  writers.  —  Subsidiary  to  the  large  pattern 
of  life  which  we  call. the  novel  comes  the  short-story.  Henry 
Kingsley,  Dr.  John  Brown,  Wilkie  Collins,  Bulwer  Lytton, 
Dickens,  Thackeray,  George  Eliot,  and  Stevenson  in  England, 
and  Hawthorne,  Poe,  Bret  Harte,  Edward  Everett  Hale,  James, 
Aldrich,  Mark  Twain,  Bunner,  Cable,  Stockton,  Mrs.  Freeman 
in  America,  —  the  list  is  long,  and  it  is  difficult  to  say  where  it 
should  end.  Of  these,  one,  Henry  James,  survived  into 
1915,  Stevenson  lived  until  1894,  and  a  few  of  the  Americans 
wrote  past  1890. 

No  student  of  the  short-story  can  afford  to  miss  reading 


276  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

Henry  Kingsley's  Our  Brown  Passenger,  Dr.  John  Brown's  Rab 
and  his  Friends,  Wilkie  CoUins's  A  Terribly  Strange  Bed,  Bulwer 
Lytton's  The  House  and  the  Brain,  Dickens's  The  Signal  Man, 
Thackeray's  Dennis  Haggerty's  Wife,  and  George  Eliot's  Amos 
Barton,  though  the  stories  of  Thackeray  and  George  Eliot  are 
tales  or  condensed  novels  or  novelettes  rather  than  short-stories, 
in  the  strictly  technical  sense  of  the  term. 

Stevenson.  —  The  short-stories  of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 
will  not  admit  of  mere  cataloguing  along  with  a  list  of  others. 
Bred  upon  English  literature,  Scotch  blood  in  his  veins,  in  love 
with  the  French  method  of  writing,  Hawthornesque  in  the 
moral  issue  which  he  almost  invariably  makes  the  kernel  of  his 
story,  much  should  be  required  of  him,  and  much  he  gives. 
A  Lodging  for  the  Night,  Will  d'  the  Mill,  and  The  Sire  de 
Maletroifs  Door^  were  published  within  four  months  of  each 
other,  in  the  fall  and  winter  of  187 7-1 878,  and  it  was  evident 
then  that  there  was  one  Englishman  with  a  pliant  style  and  a 
strength  of  inventive  power  which  assured  all  readers  of  fiction 
that  something  new  under  the  sun  was  being  done  or  about  to 
be  done  for  them.  The  Merry  Men,  The  Strange  Case  of  Dr. 
Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde,  and  Markheim  deepened  the  impression 
with  many,  and  assured  many  more  that  the  impression  found 
justification  in  the  truth  itself.  A  Lodging  for  the  Night  restores 
a  character  and  an  environment  to  a  place  from  which  they 
will  never  again  be  dislodged.  Will  0'  the  Mill  is  the  best 
brief  biography  in  all  fiction.  The  Sire  de  MaletroiVs  Door  has 
no  superior  in  modern  romantic  short-story  literature.  TIte 
Merry  Men  carries  with  it  the  impression  of  setting  which  its 
author  felt,  in  a  manner  that  is  little  short  of  perfect.  Dr. 
Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde  is  an  irresistibly  impressive  detective  ro- 
mance, from  whose  moral  point  no  reader  ever  escapes.  Mark- 
heim is  most  excellent  in  workmanship,  though  generally  over- 


THE  VICTORIAN  ERA  277 

estimated  in  the  psychology  of  its  subject  matter.  To  these 
should  be  added  The  Bottle  Imp,  a  South  Sea  version  of  an  old 
German  tale,  and  a  story  true  to  all  points  of  the  variable  com- 
pass of  human  nature.  Fresh  and  natural,  this  story  is,  despite 
the  continental  ancestry  which  is  evident  in  it.  Stevenson  must 
be  awarded  the  laurel  crown  when  search  is  made  for  the  one  who, 
best  of  all,  can  with  genial  charm  make  the  most  that  can  be  made 
of  an  incident  or  a  situation  within  the  bounds  of  the  short-story. 

The  American  short-story.  —  The  short-story,  in  its  modern 
methods,  is  a  product  of  American  artistry  rather  than  of  that 
of  any  other  nation.  With  the  exception  chiefly  of  the  work  of 
Auerbach  and  Storm,  Germany  has  produced  tales,  not  short- 
stories.  France,  Russia,  and  England  have  had  adepts  at  the 
short-story,  but  none  of  them,  nor  any  even  of  the  French,  has 
equaled,  much  less  excelled,  the  work  in  this  field  done  by 
Hawthorne,  Poe,  Bret  Harte,  and  James.  Aldrich's  Marjorie 
Daw  is  exquisite,  the  best  story  in  its  own  peculiar  form.  Mark 
Twain's  The  Jumping  Frog  oj  Calaveras  County  is  most  irre- 
sistibly funny.  Stockton's  The  Lady  or  the  Tiger  has  no  peer  in 
the  realm  of  unsolved  problem.  H.  C.  Bunner's  A  Sisterly 
Scheme  has  never  failed  to  charm  every  reader  who  has  perused 
it,  — •  a  fact  it  would  be  hard  to  find  true  of  any  other  short- 
story.  George  W.  Cable's  local  situation  stories  are  among  the 
best  sketchy  views  of  unusual  life.  Edward  Everett  Hale's  The 
Man  Without  a  Country  will  never  be  forgotten  so  long  as  the 
sentiment  of  patriotism  remains  a  power  within  the  human 
breast.  Yet  none  of  these  stories,  distinctive  as  each  is,  can 
be  said  to  be  on  a  par  with  the  best  work  of  the  other  four 
Americans,  Hawthorne,  Poe,  Bret  Harte,  and  James. 

Hawthorne  was  the  psychologist.  Among  his  many  stories, 
Ethan  Brand,  The  Great  Stone  Face,  The  Hollow  between  Three 
Hills,  and  The  White  Old  Maid  are  typical.     Poe  was  the  plot- 


278  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

maker.  Berenice,  Li^eia,  The  Pit  and  the  Pendulum,  The 
Masque  of  the  Red  Death,  and  The  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher, 
gruesome  as  they  are,  still  are  the  best-planned  stories  in  the 
whole  realm  of  short-story  writing.  Henry  James  is  a  psy- 
chologist, too,  but  not  one  who  plumbs  the  hitherto  untouched 
depths  as  did  Hawthorne.  He  has  taken  the  more  simple  situ- 
.  ations,  as  compared  with  those  elaborated  by  Hawthorne,  in  the 
life  of  human  beings,  and  analyzed  them  into  copious,  almost 
infinite,  detail.  One  who  wishes  to  examine  the  subtle  and 
sinuous  windings  of  the  human  mind  amid  situations  that  are 
not,  as  a  rule,  quite  unusual,  may  do  so  in  the  writings  of  Henry 
James.  In  191 5  James  became  a  British  citizen,  after  having 
resided  in  England  for  forty  years.  Bret  Harte  is  everywhere 
recognized  as  the  first  master  of  stories  of  so-called  local  color, 
that  is  to  say,  stories  which  take  their  tone  from  the  surround- 
ings of  the  characters.  Doubtless  it  is  not  true  that  the  char- 
acters and  the  incidents  and  even  the  physical  environment  in 
the  California  stories  are  as  they  were  in  reality;  but  they 
distinctly  give  the  impression  that  they  are,  which  is  the  most 
positive  proof  of  the  skill  of  the  author.  In  such  stories  as 
Tennessee's  Partner,  The  Luck  of  Roaring  Camp,  and  especially 
The  Outcasts  of  Poker  Flat,  character,  incident,  and  mental 
and  physical  situation  all  blend  into  one  harmonious  and  con- 
vincing whole.  These  writers  are  deserving  of  more  space  in 
consideration,  but  our  interest  here  is  primarily  with  literature 
in  Great  Britain  and  but  incidentally  with  that  of  America. 

IV.   Criticism 

Macaulay.  —  Macaulay's  Critical  and  Historical  Essays  were 
collected  and  printed  in  1843.  The  important  ones  written  be- 
fore 1837  we  have  already  mentioned  on  pages  242-4.     Macaulay 


THE' VICTORIAN  ERA  279 

was  a  man  of  wonderful  memory,  hence  his  knowledge  was 
great.  This,  together  with  his  instinct  for  historical  illustration 
and  for  constructing  sentences  that  were  always  unmistakably 
clear,  made  his  essays  highly  effective.  He  is  still  the  most 
popular,  the  most  widely  read,  of  any  prose  author  in  English 
literary  history,  with  the  exception  of  some  of  the  novelists.  He 
is  sometimes  accused  of  being  superficial,  but  there  is  still  room 
for  much  of  clear  and  positive  writing  about  even  the  surface 
matters  of  human  life,  and  Macaulay  is  greatly  to  be  com- 
mended for  making  so  clear  the  values  of  ordinary  things. 
He  was  a  strongly  practical  moralist,  and  it  is  only  because 
the  philosophers  of  most  nations  have  too  much  neglected  that 
part  of  practical  philosophy  which  is  known  as  morality  that 
Macaulay  is  so  frequently  accused  of  being  superficial.  M.  Taine 
has  said,  "  Macaulay  brings  to  the  moral  sciences  that  spirit  of 
circumspection,  that  desire  for  certainty,  and  that  instinct 
for  truth,  which  make  up  the  practical  mind,  and  which  from 
the  time  of  Bacon  have  constituted  the  scientific  merit  and 
power  of  his  nation." 

Furthermore,  if  style  can  be  said  to  be  adequate  expression 
of  the  author's  whole  meaning,  then  Macaulay  had  style. 
Macaulay  had  a  superb  faculty  for  explanation  and  proof,  and, 
while  he  did  not  write  the  impassioned  prose  of  De  Quincey, 
yet  his  expositions  move  us  more  than  those  of  De  Quincey  do, 
for  their  content  is  that  of  fact  and  truth,  while  De  Quincey 
wrote  chiefly  of  merely  fanciful  matters.  Yet  Macaulay  could 
movingly  employ  the  imaginative,  as  many  a  passage  in  his 
essays  proves.     The  following  one  is  from  the  Essay  on  Milton: 

Ariosto  tells  a  pretty  story  of  a  fairy,  who,  by  some  mysterious  law  of  her 
nature,  was  condemned  to  appear  at  certain  seasons  in  the  form  of  a  foul  and 
poisonous  snake.  Those  who  injured  her  during  the  period  of  her  disguise 
were  forever  excluded  from  participation  in  the  blessings  which  she  bestowed. 


28o  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

But  to  those  who,  in  spite  of  her  loathsome  aspect,  pitied  and  protected  her, 
she  afterwards  revealed  herself  in  the  beautiful  and  celestial  form  which  was 
natural  to  her,  accompanied  their  steps,  granted  all  their  wishes,  filled  their 
houses  with  wealth,  made  them  happy  in  love  and  victorious  in  war.  Such 
a  spirit  is  Liberty.  At  times  she  takes  the  form  of  a  hateful  reptile.  She 
grovels,  she  hisses,  she  stings.  But  woe  to  those  who  in  disgust  shall  venture 
to  crush  her !  And  happy  are  those  who,  having  dared  to  receive  her  in  her 
degraded  and  frightful  shape,  shall  at  length  be  rewarded  by  her  in  the  time 
of  her  beauty  and  glory  1 

Macaulay  was  a  very  modern  man.  He  believed  the  object 
of  knowledge  not  to  be  theory,  but  application.  In  his  Essay  on 
Bacon,  the  man  from  whom  genuine  science,  according  to 
Macaulay,  began  to  date,  he  says  that  "  the  philosophy  of  the 
ancients  produced  fine  writings,  sublime  phrases,  infinite  dis- 
putes, hollow  dreams,  systems  displaced  by  systems,  and  left 
the  world  as  ignorant,  as  unhappy,  and  as  wicked  as  it  found  it." 
But  the  philosophy  of  Bacon 

has  lengthened  Uf e ;  it  has  mitigated  pain ;  it  has  extinguished  disease ;  it 
has  increased  the  fertility  of  the  soil;  it  has  given  new  securities  to  the 
mariner;  it  has  furnished  new  arms  to  the  warrior;  it  has  spanned  great 
rivers  and  estuaries  with  bridges  of  form  unknown  to  our  fathers;  it  has 
guided  the  thunderbolt  innocuously  from  heaven  to  earth;  it  has  lighted 
up  the  night  with  the  splendours  of  the  day ;  it  has  extended  the  range  of 
human  vision;  it  has  multiplied  the  power  of  the  human  muscles  ;  it  has 
accelerated  motion ;  it  has  annihilated  distance ;  it  has  faciUtated  intercourse, 
correspondence,  all  friendly  oflices,  all  despatch  of  business ;  it  has  enabled 
man  to  descend  to  the  depths  of  the  sea,  to  soar  into  the  air,  to  penetrate 
securely  into  the  noxious  recesses  of  the  earth,  to  traverse  the  land  in  cars 
which  whirl  along  without  horses,  and  the  ocean  in  ships  which  run  ten 
knots  an  hour  against  the  wind. 

From  this  point  on  Macaulay  proceeds  to  take  an  ancient 
Stoic  and  a  Baconian  into  places  of  stress  and  difficulty,  and 
by  various  brilliant  illustrations  shows  the  difference  between 


THE  VICTORIAN  ERA  281 

the  philosophy  of  thorns  and  the  philosophy  of  fruit,  the  phi- 
losophy of  words  and  the  philosophy  of  works.  However  much 
one  may  think  that  Macaulay  unworthily  depreciates  the  value 
of  speculative  philosophy,  yet  one  must  admit  that  he  thoroughly 
represents  the  positive  and  practical  English  national  genius. 

It  is  an  ungrateful  task  to  choose  the  best  of  his  essays,  but 
one  may  tentatively  suggest  those  on  Milton,  Southey,  Pitt, 
Chatham,  Clive,  Hastings,  Madame  D'Arblay,  Boswell,'  Hallam, 
Frederick  the  Great,  and  Ranke,  as  among  the  best. 

Carlyle.  —  In  temperament,  in  life,  and  in  manner  of  writing, 
Thomas  Carlyle  is  in  strong  contrast  with  Macaulay.  Macau- 
lay  is  calm  and  relatively  unimaginative,  Carlyle  is  always  dis- 
turbed in  heart  and  mind,  with  fiery  and  tumultuous  imagina- 
tion ;  Macaulay  is  a  politician  and  a  man  of  affairs,  Carlyle  is  a 
recluse ;  Macaulay  is  positive,  direct,  saying  all  he  means  arid 
no  more,  in  every  sentence  that  he  utters,  Carlyle  achieves  his 
powerful  effects  by  suggestion,  extravagance,  and  violence. 
All  life  to  Macaulay  is  as  clear  as  noon-day  sunshine ;  Carlyle 
never  looks  upon  life  except  through  the  medium  of  brilliant  or 
gloomy  visions. 

Carlyle  may  be  quite  thoroughly  known  through  the  read- 
ing of  three  books:  (i)  Sartor  Resartus,  (2)  Past  and  Present, 
and  (3)  On  Heroes,  Hero-Worship,  and  the  Heroic  in  History. 
In  the  last  of  these,  myth-god,  prophet,  poet,  priest,  man  of 
letters,  and  king  are  the  heroes  in  man's  history.  Odin ;  Ma- 
homet ;  Dante  and  Shakespeare ;  Luther  and  Knox ;  Johnson, 
Burns,  and  Rousseau;  and  Cromwell  and  Napoleon,  are  the 
characters  representing  the  heroic  qualities  which  Carlyle 
thinks  worthy  the  adoration  of  the  thinking  and  doing  man. 
In  this  book  Carlyle  for  the  time  being  abandoned  his  fantas- 
tic and  puzzle-ridden  style  for  simple,  straightforward  subject- 
predicate  form  of  statement,  with  very  little  forcing  of  the 


282  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

reader  to  the  dictionary  for  the  meaning  of  the  most  uncom- 
mon words  in  or  out  of  the  language. 

Past  and  Present,  also,  is  easily  readable  in  one's  quietest 
mood.  It  is  a  comparison  of  England  in  the  medieval  days  with 
England  in  his  own  time,  to  the  discredit  of  the  latter.  In 
medieval  England  men  were  divided,  as  Carlyle  thought  they 
should  be,  into  leaders  and  the  led ;  and  thus,  he  insisted,  it 
should  always  be  that  the  wise  and  the  gifted  should  be  foremost 
and  should  be  welcomed  as  foremost  among  men.  The  motive 
of  the  book  is  very  like  that  of  Heroes  and  Hero-Worship. 

Heroes  and  Hero-Worship  may  well  be  called  a  book  of  es- 
says, though  its  contents  were  first  delivered  as  lectures.  Past 
and  Present  is  not  strictly  a  group  of  essays,  for  through  it  runs 
a  sort  of  story  of  the  old  Abbey  of  St.  Edmund's  Bury,  and  yet 
each  chapter  of  the  book  may  be  read  as  a  unit  in  itself  and 
thoroughly  enjoyed  as  such.  Sartor  Resartus  (1834)  also  is 
not  strictly  a  series  of  essays,  though  each  chapter  has  a  theme 
almost  as  separate  from  that  of  every  other  as  would  be  found  in 
a  volume  of  essays  by  Macaulay. 

"  Sartor  Resartus "  means  The  Tailor  Repatched.  The 
book  is  a  sort  of  "  clothes-philosophy."  It  pretends  to  be  a 
translation  of  a  German  work  which  Carlyle  had  found  (and 
upon  which  he  furnishes  a  running  commentary),  originally 
written  by  a  professor  in  the  University  of  Weissnichtwo  (No- 
Man-Knows-Where).  Clothes  are  considered,  not  as  the 
symbols  of  what  is  beneath  them,  but  as  symbols  of  what,  in 
conventional  mind  and  society  life,  we  wrap  about  ourselves,  — 
words,  customs,  institutions,  and  so  on.  Carlyle  endeavors  to 
strip  away  from  man  all  these  concealments  and  to  reveal  man 
as  he  is : 

To  the  eye  of  vulgar  Logic,  what  is  man?  An  omnivorous  Biped 
that  wears  Breeches.    To  the  eye  of  Pure  Reason,  what  is  he?    A  Soul,  a 


THE  VICTORIAN   ERA  283 

Spirit,  and  divine  Apparition.  Round  his  mysterious  Me,  there  lies,  under 
all  those  wool-rags,  a  Garment  of  Flesh  (or  of  Senses)  Contextured  in  the 
Loom  of  Heaven ;  Whereby  he  is  revealed  to  his  Hke,  and  dwells  with  them  in 
Union  and  Division;  and  sees  and  fashions  for  himself  a  Universe,  with 
azure  Starry  Spaces,  and  long  Thousands  of  Years.  Deep-hidden  is  he 
under  that  strange  Garment ;  amid  Sounds  and  Colours  and  Forms,  as  it 
were,  swathed-in,  and  inextricably  over-shrouded;  yet  it  is  sky- woven 
and  worthy  of  a  God. 

To-day  much  of  the  effect  which  Carlyle  gained  at  the  time 
of  writing  is  lost  by  absurd  over-capitalization.  One  wants 
never  to  quote  without  modernizing  a  little ;  though,  from  the 
literary-historical  point  of  view,  that  would  be  misleading. 

In  the  chapter  on  "  Natural  Supernaturalism  "  in  Sartor  Re- 
sarins y  Carlyle  says  that  "  Thought  without  Reverence  is 
barren,  perhaps  poisonous."  But  when  once  one  had  thought 
and  had  looked  with  reverence 

Then  sawest  thou  that  this  fair  Universe,  were  it  in  the  meanest  province 
thereof,  is  in  very  deed  the  star-domed  City  of  God;  that  through  every 
star,  through  every  grassblade,  and  most  through  every  Living-Soul,  the 
glory  of  a  present  God  still  beams.  .  .  . 

Generation  after  generation  takes  to  itself  the  form  of  a  Body;  and 
forth-issuing  from  Cimmerian  Night,  on  Heaven's  mission  Appears.  What 
Force  and  Fire  is  in  each  he  expends;  one  grinding  in  the  mill  of  Industry; 
one,  hunter-like,  climbing  the  giddy  Alpine  heights  of  Science;  one  madly 
dashed  in  pieces  on  the  rocks  of  Strife,  in  war  with  his  fellow ;  —  and  the 
Heaven-sent  is  recalled ;  his  earthly  Vesture  falls  away,  and  soon  even  to 
Sense  becomes  a  vanished  Shadow.  Thus,  like  some  wild-flaming,  wild- 
thundering  train  of  Heaven's  Artillery,  does  this  mysterious  Mankind 
thunder  and  flame,  in  long-drawn,  quick  succeeding  grandeur,  through  the 
unknown  Deep.  Thus,  like  a  God-created,  fire-breathing  Spirit-host,  we 
emerge  from  the  Inane ;  haste  stormfuUy  across  the  astonished  Earth,  then 
plunge  again  into  the  Inane.  .  .  .  But  whence?  O  Heaven,  whither? 
Sense  knows  not ;  Faith  knows  not ;  only  that  it  is  through  Mystery  to  Mys- 
tery, from  God  and  to  God. 


284  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

Carlyle's  mission  was  to  make  men  think  and  feel  deeply ; 
and,  while  not  so  large  a  number  of  people  have  read  him 
as  have  read  Macaulay  and  the  novelists,  yet  no  man  in  his 
day  succeeded  more  fully  than  Carlyle  in  accomplishing  that 
mission  of  making  men  both  think  and  feel  deeply. 

J.  S.  Mill.  —  John  Stuart  Mill,  known  in  the  history  of 
philosophy  and  of  science  for  his  System  of  Logic  and  his  Politi- 
cal Economy,  came  within  the  confines  of  literature,  to  remain 
there,  by  his  essays  on  Liberty  and  on  The  Subjection  of  Women. 
He  was  a  cautious  thinker,  clear  in  statement,  and,  in  these  two 
essays,  fervid  in  conviction  and  in  persuasive  power. 

Arnold.  —  Matthew  Arnold,  a  man  of  sensitive  temperament, 
delicacy  of  mind,  and  fineness  of  literary  impulse  and  taste,  gave 
himself  up  for  many  years  to  the  laborious  and  self-sacrificing 
task  of  inspector  of  schools,  even  to  the  extent  of  daily  reading 
and  marking  hundreds  of  papers  in  elementary  mathematics 
and  grammar.  He  also  held  the  most  coveted  chair  in  English 
Universities,  that  of  Poetry  at  Oxford.  Further,  with  greatest 
patience  and  thoroughness,  he  visited  and  reported  upon  the 
educational-  institutions  of  France  and  Germany.  Amid  this 
exhaustive  and  wearisome  work  he  became  a  poet  of  prominence 
and  an  essayist  second  only  to  Macaulay,  Carlyle,  and  Ruskin. 
He  was  self-sacrificing,  saying  "  Whether  one  lives  long  or  not, 
to  be  less  and  less  personal  in  one's  desires  and  workings  is  the 
great  matter."  He  was  also  ambitious  and  courageous,  for  he 
said,  and  lived  according  to  the  saying,  "  However,  one  cannot 
change  English  ideas  as  much  as,  if  I  live,  I  hope  to  change  them, 
without  saying  imperturbably  what  one  thinks,  and  making 
a  good  many  people  uncomfortable."  Arnold  is  believed  by 
many  to  have  been  unsympathetic,  though  kindly  in  that  lack 
of  sympathy.  But  some  appear  to  find  even  in  this  kindliness 
an  air  of  superciliousness.    Others  think  this  apparent  super- 


THE  VICTORIAN  ERA  285 

ciliousness  (which  some  always  attribute  to  a  conscious  expres- 
sion of  the  cultured  mind)  to  be  really  an  intense  moral  earnest- 
ness and  an  over-conscientious  anxiety  to  be  conciliatory. 

Arnold's  style  is  very  formally  correct,  but  it  is  richly  rhythmi- 
cal, always  sharp  in  its  effect,  and,  perhaps,  a  little  too  anxious 
to  be  understood  at  all  points.  This  anxiety  to  be  understood 
led  Arnold  into  a  habit  of  repetition  of  the  main  thought  in  al- 
most identical  phrase,  on  the  theory,  some  one  has  said,  that 
**  What  I  tell  you  three  times  is  true,"  which  habit  to  some  is 
an  objectionable  mannerism,  to  others  a  grateful  relief  because 
it  enables  them  to  carry  forward  with  them  the  chief  topic  and 
idea  without  constant  strain  to  the  memory. 

More  than  Macaulay  and  than  Carlyle,  Arnold  was  a  literary 
critic,  a  critic  not  directly  of  life  so  much  as  indirectly  of  life 
through  the  interpretation  and  dissemination  of  the  best  litera- 
ture. He  said  that  the  function  of  criticism  is  to  learn  and 
propagate  the  best  that  is  known  and  thought  in  the  world.  He 
made  it  evident  to  every  one  that  '^  criticism  "  did  not  mean 
adverse  comment  so  much  as  appreciation. 

In  1865  nine  of  his  essays  were  collected  into  one  volume, 
entitled  Essays  in  Criticism.  This  and  three  other  groups  of 
essays,  under  the  titles  of  Mixed  EssaySj  Second  Series  of  Es- 
says in  Criticism,  and  a  volume  of  Discourses  in  America,  contain 
his  best  work.  A  comparison  of  his  essay  on  "  Democracy  " 
with  that  of  Lowell  upon  the  same  subject  makes  a  most  inter- 
esting study.  However  much  difference  of  attitude  there  may 
be  towards  Arnold  among  his  readers,  most  of  them  find  him  de- 
lightfully stimulating.  Perhaps  his  purpose  and  what  he  ac- 
complished can  be  no  better  expressed  than  in  a  statement  in 
the  preface  to  his  first  volume  of  essays,  that  he  is  trying  "  to 
pull  out  a  few  more  stops  in  that  powerful,  but  at  present  some- 
what narrow- toned  organ,  the  modern  Englishman."     Or,  to 


286  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

put  his  purpose,  if  not  his  achievement,  in  still  other  words  of  his, 
he  strove  to  intensify  in  England  "  the  impulse  to  the  develop- 
ment of  the  whole  man,  to  connecting  and  harmonizing  all  parts 
of  him,  perfecting  all,  leaving  none  to  take  its  chance." 

Jefferies.  —  The  Story  of  My  Heart  is  the  title  of  a  book 
which  is  sure  to  be  of  permanent  interest  to  thoughtful  readers. 
It  is  not  a  "  sentimental  "  book,  however,  .despite  its  title. 
While  not  entirely  clear,  and  sometimes  somewhat  gloomy,  yet 
it  is  an  expression,  in  a  manner  doubtless  as  clear  as  possible, 
of  the  vaguer  moods  which  beset  all  of  us  and  for  which  we  all 
desire  to  find  some  outlet.  Its  author  is  John  Richard  Jefferies. 
The  book  was  published  in  1883,  four  years  before  its  author's 
death.  Not  only  was  Jefferies  a  medium  for  sturdy  expression 
of  what  is,  possibly,  a  trifle  over-sentimental  in  most  lovers  of 
the  things  which  make  the  subject  matter  of  literature,  but  he 
was  the  most  accurate  and  vivid  of  the  minute  describers  of  out- 
of-door  nature  in  its  more  delicate  appeal  to  the  human  mind 
and  heart.  An  eighteenth-century  man,  Gilbert  White,  in  1789 
had  published  a  Natural  History  of  Selbourne,  and  the  poets 
of  England  centering  about  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  and  Thoreau  in  America,  had  endeavored  to  come 
close  to  nature  and  to  record  vividly  what  they  found  there. 
But  Jefferies  in  his  The  Game-  Keeper  at  Home  and  The  Life  of 
the  Fields  equaled  any  of  them  and  surpassed  most,  both  in 
accuracy  of  observation  and  in  picturesque  vividness  in  convey- 
ing to  his  reader  what  he  had  so  accurately  observed.  For  a 
reader  who  is  inclined  to  find  in  nature  mere  "  things,"  Jefferies 
is  the  best  sort  of  tonic,  for  he  will  help  that  reader  to  spiritual 
insight. 

Newman.  —  John  Henry  Newman  stands  by  himself  as  a 
writer  who  combines  uncompromising  force  and  unshaken  con- 
viction with  the  most  familiar  colloquial  manner  of  discourse. 


THE   VICTORIAN  ERA  287 

So  subtle  and  flexible  was  his  intellect  that  he  could  say  "  Rea- 
soning, or  the  exercise  of  reason,  is  a  living,  spontaneous  energy 
within  us,  not  an  art,"  and  yet  he  never  failed  to  meet  the  re- 
quirements of  logical  method  and  exhaustive  thoroughness  of 
treatment.  So  perfectly  poised,  so  affable,  so  luminous  is  the 
intellectual  atmosphere  with  which  he  surrounds  himself,  so 
far-ranging  in  reach  of  illustration  is  he,^so  thorough  his  grasp 
upon  social  facts  and  human  impulses  and  motives,  that  every 
one  finds  him  easy  to  read ;  and  even  those  who  will  not  accept 
what  he  says  as  truth  in  its  application  are  yet  charmed  out  of 
themselves,  particularly  when  they  face  the  parts  of  his  writing 
that,  with  all  their  subtle  irony,  are  openly  reflective  of  his  finely 
noble  spirit,  —  and  that  is  almost  every  part. 

Newman's  style  was  like  that  of  the  best  French  writers,  very 
flexible,  very  clear,  unemphatic,  suave,  gently  ironic.  It  is 
musical,  and  thus,  in  a  way,  attunes  the  mind  of  the  reader  to 
that  of  the  writer.  If  it  has  faults,  they  are  those  of  excess  of 
color  and  a  slight  redundancy.  It  may  be  said  of  Newman 
that  he  has  in  a  most  exceptional  manner  aided  to  make  the  Eng- 
lish language  pure.  While  there  was  much  of  impassioned 
struggle,  there  was  none  of  the  "  impassioned  prose  "  in  his  writ- 
ings such  as  in  those  of  De  Quincey,  for  it  was  not  the  magnilo- 
quent, nor  even  the  magnificent  that  he  strove  for,  but  the  clear- 
ness and  simplicity  of  the  accomplished  scholar.  This  it  was 
which  made  him  attractive,  and  powerful,  also. 

One  will  go  far  afield  and  return  again  without  finding  a 
writer  in  whom  the  interdependence  of  life  of  the  times,  life 
of  himself,  and  his  writings  is  more  marked  and  evident.  He 
lived  first  almost  exclusively  in  the  academic  atmosphere,  then 
in  the  more  purely  ecclesiastical  atmosphere,  becoming  finally 
a  cardinal  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  From  1830  until 
1870,  at  least,  there  raged  much  controversy  in  the  Anglican 


288  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

church  over  tendencies  towards  Roman  Catholic  practices  and 
beliefs,  —  they  have  not  yet  ceased,  indeed.  Newman  very 
gradually  passed  from  extreme  views,  such  as  that  the  Pope 
was  Antichrist,  through  a  Via  Media  to  reception  into  the 
Roman  communion.  All  of  this  is  explained  in  his  Apologia  pro 
Vita  Sua  (Apology  for  his  own  life),  published  in  1864,  showing 
fully  the  mystic,  subtle,  imaginative  spirit  of  the  author.  The 
book,  fervid  and  sincere  as  it  is,  failed,  nevertheless,  to  carry 
his  friends  in  great  numbers  with  him.  Most  of  them  felt  that 
all  his  brilliant  logic  failed  to  found  itself  upon  sound  reason. 
They  believed  that  there  was  something  evasive  in  such  asser- 
tions as  that  "  Scripture  says  the  earth  is  stationary  and  the 
sun  moves :  science,  that  the  sun  is  stationary  and  that  the  earth 
moves ;  and  we  shall  never  know  which  is  true  until  we  know 
what  motion  is."  The  volume  entitled  Idea  of  a  University 
contains  the  best  of  his  expressions  upon  education,  literature, 
and  the  like,  and  has  been  profound  in  its  influence  upon  thought- 
ful readers. 

In  poetry  Cardinal  Newman's  name  has  become  world- 
famed,  for  his  Dream  of  Gerontius  has  been  set  to  oratorio  music 
by  Elgar  and  rendered  everywhere.  Also,  he  wrote  one  of 
the  best  religious  hymns  in  English,  "Lead,  Kindly  Light." 
This  hymn  reflects  perfectly  the  condition  of  his  mind  while 
considering  the  change  of  doctrine  which  he  was  lingering  over. 
Newman  died  in  1890. 

Pater.  —  It  is  a  fashion  much  affected  by  the  smart  journalist, 
gently  or  rudely,  according  to  his  temperament,  to  ridicule  the 
influence  of  Walter  Pater  upon  the  academic  and  artistically 
inclined  mind.  He  rarely  ridicules  the  style  or  the  thought 
of  Pater  directly,  for  he  seldom  has  read  him.  Perhaps 
the  writer  of  the  too  frequently  structureless  newspaper  arti- 
cle  feels    too   keenly   the    indirect    criticism    upon    him    in 


THE   VICTORIAN  ERA  289 

Pater's  often  quoted  statement  that  "  In  literary  as  in  all  other 
art,  structure  is  all-important,  felt,  or  painfully  missed,  every- 
where —  that  architectural  conception  of  work  which  foresees 
the  end  in  the  beginning  and  never  loses  sight  of  it,  and  in 
every  part  is  conscious  of  all  the  rest,  till  the  last  sentence 
does  but,  with  undiminished  vigor,  unfold  and  justify  the 
first  —  a  condition  of  literary  art  which  ...  I  shall  call  the 
necessity  of  mind  in  style."  There  is  no  doubt  that  Pater 
has  refined  his  thought  at  times  beyond  the  power  of  the 
hurried  reader  to  follow.  However,  to  one  who  will  read  with 
care,  his  fullness  of  thought  and  ripehess  of  suggestion  are  not 
only  most  engaging  but  most  illuminating  as  well.  And  while 
it  is  true  that  his. thought  is  ramified  and  refined  into  remote 
corners  and  into  unobvious  meanings,  yet  it  is  never  empty,  but 
full  and  stately  as  the  style  in  which  it  is  reproduced.  The 
attempts  of  some  of  his  admirers  to  imitate  the  beauty  of  his 
English  have  resulted  in  disaster  to  them;  for  the  careful 
building  up  of  each  part  of  his  discourse,  part  and  whole  being 
equally  held  in  mind,  rhythm  artfully  schemed,  and  vocabulary 
sifted  down  to  the  apt  but  inevitable  word,  is  entirely  beyond 
their  power  to  master.  The  strange  effect  which  he  has  gained 
by  all  this  avoidance  of  what  is  worn  and  obvious  has  resulted 
in  mere  bizarrerie  when  handled  by  the  imitator. 

But  the  greatest  influence  of  Pater  is  not  in  and  through  the 
wonder  of  his  style.  It  is  in  the  aim  to  which  he  devoted  himself 
and  in  what  he  achieved  of  a  life  philosophy  in  the  carrying  out 
of  that  aim.  It  was  his  aim  to  secure  from  literature,  and  from 
all  art,  "  the  quickened  sense  of  life."  While  he  may  have 
excluded  other  things  of  value  in  his  consideration  of  the  things 
from  which  this  understanding  and  this  pleasure  of  life  may  be 
extracted,  yet  the  net  result  is  that  he  has  succeeded  in  firmly 
placing  literary  and  other  art  upon  a  high  level  in  relation  to 


290  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

their  effect  upon  life,  from  which  level  to  a  lower  one  they  can 
never  be  removed.  It  is  in  his  Studies  in  the  History  of  the 
Renaissance  (1873)  and,  later,  in  Appreciations  that  his  finest 
thinking  was  done.  In  critical  prose  he  is  even  a  more  wonder- 
ful craftsman  than  Stevenson  in  his  narrative  prose.  As  skilled 
a  craftsman  in  prose  as  Tennyson  was  in  verse. 

Ruskin.  —  Of  the  greater  critical  writers,  there  remains  John 
Ruskin,  the  treatment  of  whom  we  have  reserved  to  this  point, 
since  he  came  so  near  living  to  be  contemporary  with  the  youth 
of  to-day.  He  was  born  in  1819  and  died  in  1900.  J.  M.  Whist- 
ler, who  was  not  his  friend,  called  him  "  Master  of  English 
Literature."  Undoubtedly  Ruskin  was  preeminently  the 
master  of  all  the  known  resources  of  English  prose.  The  ro- 
mantic vigor  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  the  reverential  tone  of  Words- 
worth, the  sensitiveness  of  Shelley,  the  accuracy  of  the  greatest 
scientists,  the  ornate  wealth  of  diction  and  phrase  of  Hooker, 
the  frequently  grotesque  forcefulness  of  Carlyle,  the  music  of 
the  King  James  Version  of  the  Bible,  —  all  these  and,  seemingly, 
all  else  that  could  be  added  unto  these,  gathered  themselves 
into  the  writings  of  this  one  man  who  had  the  keenest  and 
surest  power  of  discriminating  observation,  the  most  unconven- 
tional points  of  view,  and  the  most  solidly  based  and  yet  richly 
rapturous  visions  for  man's  life  of  any  writer  in  the  whole  long 
twelve  hundred  years  of  English  literature. 

Macaulay,  Carlyle,  Arnold,  and  Newman  had  devoted  them- 
selves to  the  criticism  of  human  society  and  to  the  one  product 
of  art  known  as  literature ;  Pater  had  reached  deliberately  and 
fully  into  the  realm  of  the  fine  arts  generally ;  Ruskin  divided 
his  great  powers  between  art  and  nature,  tirelessly  devoting 
all  those  powers  to  the  making  of  man  wiser,  better,  nobler. 
He  was  as  energetic  in  his  demands  for  work  as  was  Carlyle. 
*'  Life  without  industry  is  guilt,"  he  said.     But  he  was  as 


THE  VICTORIAN  ERA  291 

anxious  that  man  should  be  a  producer  and  lover  of  art  as 
ever  Pater  could  be.  "  Industry  without  art  is  brutality," 
he  said. 

Ruskin  wrote  as  many  as  eighty  books,  —  all  of  them  intended 
to  be  for  the  good  of  man.  From  the  essay  on  The  Poetry  oj 
Architecture,  written  at  the  age  of  eighteen,  to  the  letter  on 
Icelandic  Industries,  written  at  the  age  of  seventy-one,  he  de- 
voted himself  to  principle,  —  to  no  principle  more  eagerly  or 
more  strenuously  than  to  the  one  that  the  appreciation  of  beauty 
in  art  and  in  nature  goes  hand  in  hand  with  true  progress  in 
every  line  of  human  life.  It  was  his  faithfulness  to  principle 
which  has  resulted  in  a  popularity  which  no  other  critic  of  art 
in  the  world's  history  has  attained.  If  Ruskin  ever  failed  to 
illustrate  fidelity  to  principle,  it  was  because  failure  is  charac- 
teristic of  humanity.  It  was  never  because  of  conscious  in- 
consistency nor  from  mixed  motives.  And  the  truth  is  that 
he  never  failed  except  in  unimportant  points. 

He  was  the  arbiter  of  Anglo-Saxon  taste  for  half  a  century. 
Punch  published  the  wail  of  a  Royal  Academy  artist,  — 

I  paints  and  paints, 
Hears  no  complaints, 

And  sells  before  I'm  dry; 
Till  Savage  Ruskin 
Sticks  his  tusk  in 

And  nobody  will  buy. 

Modern  Painters  and  the  Oxford  Lectures  on  Art  were  his  lead- 
ing works  in  the  field  of  criticism  of  painting.  In  domestic 
architecture  he  made  England  over.  Whole  villages  and  even 
cities  have  been  transformed  because  Ruskin  scolded  and 
taught.  The  Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture  and  Stones  of 
Venice  contain  his  chief  utterances  upon  the  art  of  archi- 
tecture. 


292  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

"  We  live  by  Admiration,  Hope,  and  Love,"  a  line  from 
Wordsworth,  was  a  favorite  one  upon  his  lips,  and  for  the 
cultivation  of  the  feeling  of  admiration  or  wonder,  of  hope  or 
aspiration,  and  of  human  and  heavenly  love  he  constantly  was 
pleading ;  yet  it  was  the  immense  knowledge  which  he  pos- 
sessed and  the  clear  significance  of  that  knowledge  to  him  which 
led  him  to  plead  even  more  for  a  right  understanding  of  the 
phenomena  and  the  principles,  first  of  art,  then  of  nature,  then 
of  the  relations  of  human  life.  This  was  the  order,  art,  nature, 
human  life,  in  which  these  interests  dominated  his  life  work. 
But  it  was  political  economy  to  which  he  gave  the  greater  share 
of  his  later  years  of  labor ;  and  while  in  his  own  time  he  was 
considered  a  curious  theorist,  talking  apart  from  the  main  issue 
in  political  economy,  —  the  acquiring  of  wealth,  —  yet  to-day 
his  teachings  are  the  predominant  ones  at  the  points  where  the 
true  interests  of  human  society  are  considered  by  the  political 
economist.  "  There  is  no  wealth  but  Life  —  Life,  including  all 
its  powers  of  love,  of  joy,  and  of  admiration,"  was  the  teaching 
of  the  volume  of  essays  called  Unto  this  Last. 

Minor  works  of  great  beauty  and  charm  were  The  Ethics  oj 
the  Dust,  The  Crown  of  Wild  Olive,  Sesame  attd  Lilies,  and 
Harbours  of  England.  Ruskin  was  also  the  author  of  one  of  the 
greatest  of  fairy  stories,  The  King  of  the  Golden  River ^  printed 
in  1854,  though  written  much  earlier. 

John  Ruskin  was  a  great  optimist.  In  the  face  of  much  to 
disconcert  him,  he  even  believed  in  the  beneficence  of  the 
processes  of  nature  in  all  respects.  He  was  not,  though,  at 
all  times  a  genial  optimist.  A  great  humorist,  yet  at  times  he 
was  the  grimmest  of  all  Britons.  He  was  unfailingly  biographic 
in  all  of  his  writings ;  in  art,  in  nature,  in  political  economy, 
always  centering  his  discussions  about  men  and  their  efforts,  — 
men  of  vital  power,  energy,  and  sincerity.     He  taught  more  and 


THE  VICTORIAN  ERA  '    293 

better  things  than  any  other  man  of  his  century ;  and  Mazzini, 
the  great  ItaUan  patriot,  said  of  him  that  he  had  the  most 
analytic  mind  in  all  Europe.  With  all  of  this,  it  passes  without 
saying  with  emphasis  to-day  that  he  was  a  marvelous  stylist. 
If  his  style  has  any  fault,  it  is  that  his  sentences  are  not  infre- 
quently too  long  for  the  uninspired  reader  to  grasp  them  as 
units.  And  yet  the  length  of  his  sentences  made  possible  his 
chief  instrument,  —  the  chief  instrument  of  all  great  styles, 
namely,  rhythm.  But  his  rhythm  was  so  far  developed  that  it 
would  become  almost  blank  verse,  if  it  were  in  sentences  that 
were  briefer  than  his. 

The  work  of  Ruskin  has  been  a  benediction  to  the  world.  To 
read  carefully  all  his  books  would  be  a  liberal  education. 

Stevenson.  —  Among  the  lesser  critical  essayists,  Stevenson 
may  be  taken  as  representative.  Virginihus  Puertsque,  1881, 
and,  in  the  following  year.  Familiar  Studies  of  Men  and  Books, 
came  from  his  pen,  and  are  his  chief  volumes  of  critical  value. 
In  both  of  these  he  is  decidedly  original.  If  one  will  read  "  An 
Apology  for  Idlers,"  in  the  first  of  these  volumes,  he  will  have 
an  excellent  example  of  the  winning  manner  of  Stevenson.  It 
is  one  of  the  many  essays  in  which  the  author  develops  a  favorite 
and  fundamental  idea,  —  that  one  ought  to  get  as  much  en- 
joyment out  of  life  as  is  possible.  The  charming  spirit  of  his 
essays  fills  his  verse  also.  The  child  not  familiar  with  his  A 
ChiWs  Garden  of  Verses  has  been  neglected,  or  has  himself 
somehow  neglected  his  opportunities.  But  this  book  is  not, 
after  all,  the  foremost  representative  of  his  poetry.  He  was  not 
a  great  poet,  but  such  a  poem  as  The  Woodman  shows  that  he 
was  at  least  an  undeveloped  second-class  poet. 

The  critical  essay  in  America.  —  Only  a  paragraph  can  be 
given  here  to  American  essayists,  though  three  of  them  are  of 
highest  importance.     Emerson,  Thoreau,  and  Lowell  were  the 


294  ENGLISH  LITERA'lURE 

three  all-important  essayists  in  America  during  the  Victorian 
era.  Emerson's  essays  are  filled  with  immemorial  culture  and 
with  flashes  of  poetic  and  philosophic  insight  such  as  no  other 
unsystematic  thinker  has  ever  had.  In  1837  he  delivered  the 
address  before  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  society  at  Cambridge  on  the 
subject  of  The  American  Scholar.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  called 
the  address  **  our  intellectual  Declaration  of  Independence." 
Emerson's  first  volume  of  Essays  came  from  the  press  in  1841, 
a  second  volume  in  1844.  The  essays  on  History,  Compensation^ 
Heroism,  Self- Reliance,  The  Over-Soul,  Character,  Manners^ 
have  entered  into  the  thought  of  the  American  people,  and  of 
many  other  people,  in  almost  every  detail  of  them.  Thoreau 
was  a  lesser  Emerson,  with  a  difference.  The  difference  lies  in 
the  fact  that  he  was  much  more  an  out-of-door  man.  Perhaps 
it  lies  partly,  too,  in  another  fact,  —  that  he  was  a  much  better 
writer.  His  Week  on  the  Concord  and  Merrimac  Rivers  and  his 
Walden,  or  Life  in  the  Woods,  are  famous,  and  deservedly  so, 
for  they  have  delighted  and  stimulated  thousands  of  readers 
who  have  received  from  Thoreau  their  first  introduction  to 
nature  as  something  more  than  mere  out-of-doors  or  than  a  con- 
venient mechanism  for  supplying  our  physical  needs  and  dis- 
ciplining our  temper.  Lowell's  essays  are  both  literary-critical 
and  political,  the  former  being  usually  reviews  of  other  men's 
works,  and  in  some  cases  turning  out  to  be  better  than  the 
things  reviewed.  His  political  essays  will  always  be  read  by 
lovers  of  good  English,  and  they  will  always  be  a  mine  for  the 
politician  who  desires  to  say  appealing  and  yet  sensible  things 
to  his  constituents.  Lowell's  A  Good  Word  for  Winter  and  On 
a  Certain  Condescension  in  Foreigners  and  Cambridge  Thirty 
Years  Ago  fall  outside  both  of  these  groups  of  critical  and  politi- 
cal essays.     But  they  are  indescribably  entertaining. 


THE  VICTORIAN  ERA  295 

V.  Science 

Five  men  of  science  in  this  period,  Charles  R.  Darwin,  Alfred 
Russel  Wallace,  Herbert  Spencer,  John  Tyndall,  and  Thomas 
Henry  Huxley,  were  men  of  letters  as  well  as  of  science.  Chief 
of  these  five,  as  men  of  letters,  were  Darwin  and  Huxley.  Their 
works  ne  er  suffer  from  dryness  and  heaviness.  Wallace  is  note- 
worthy as  co-discoverer  with  Darwin  of  the  principle  of  natural 
selection  upon  which  the  modern  theory  of  physical  evolution  is 
based.  A  book  of  his,  published  at  the  close  of  the  nineteenth 
century  and  entitled  The  Wonderful  Century^  shows  distinctly  lit- 
erary talent.  His  exposition  of  the  importance  of  dust,  in  ,Cha,p- 
ter  IX,  is  a  most  interesting  one.  Tyndall  was  first  a  railway 
engineer,  and  then  a  student  and  teacher  of  physics.  His  vol- 
ume on  Heat  as  a  Mode  of  Motion  is  interesting  and  clear  to  the 
veriest  ignoramus  in  the  science  of  physics,  as  well  as  to  the 
expert.  Herbert  Spencer's  Principles  of  Psychology  (1885) 
anticipated,  as  Aristotle  twenty-two  centuries  earlier  did,  Dar- 
win's theory  of  the  cosmic  process  of  evolution.  Spencer  worked 
out  a  vast  system  of  philosophy  which  was  published  as  Syn- 
thetic Philosophy,  in  ten  volumes,  much  of  the  philosophy  of 
which,  however,  is  already  obsolete.  Some  of  his  isolated  essays, 
as  one  on  The  Philosophy  of  Style,  are  well  written,  interesting, 
and  of  much  use  to  the  literary  worker  and  to  the  educator  gen- 
erally. 

Darwin.  —  Charles  Darwin  was  born  in  1 809.  More  than  any 
writer  who  has  ever  lived,  he  stirred  to  sympathetic  or  to 
hostile  activity  the  mind  of  his  century.  It  was  not  his  lit- 
erary achievements,  strictly  speaking,  that  brought  so  much 
of  stimulus  to  man's  mind,  but  the  announcement  in  his  Origin 
of  Species,  in  1859,  of  his  famous  biological  theories  on  selection 
and  evolution.     There  is  not  a  great  deal  of  literary  merit  in 


t 

296  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

either  this  or  his  next  book,  The  Descent  0}  Man,  except  in  the 
quality  of  clearness,  —  though  that  is  always  half  the  battle  on 
the  way  to  good  literary  expression.  But  one  always  receives 
from  Darwin  the  insistent  suggestion  that  here  was  a  man  who 
could  have  been  an  eminent  literary  artist  had  he  chosen  to  be ; 
and  in  his  little  treatise  on  Earthworms  he  fully  achieves  literary 
eminence. 

Huxley.  —  Huxley  was  also  a  biologist,  and  gave  himself 
largely  to  the  defense  of  the  pioneers  of  the  theory  of  evolution. 
From  the  literary  point  of  view  he  was  superior  to  all  other  men 
of  science  in  his  century,  for  he  had  the  power  of  effective  state- 
ment which  would  appeal  to  a  most  widespread  audience,  no 
matter  what  the  subject  to  which  he  had  turned  his  attention. 
His  defense  of  the  new  theories  extended  itself  to  aggression 
against  conservative  theology.  Both  of  these  controversial 
attitudes,  (i)  for  the  theory  of  evolution  and  (2)  against  con- 
servative theology,  showed  themselves  in  his  Lay  Sermons,  Ad- 
dresses, and  Reviews,  published  in  1870.  His  Life  of  Hume  in 
the  English  Men  of  Letters  series  is  also  very  worthy  of  note. 

VI.  Poetry 

There  were  two  great  poets  in  the  Victorian  era,  and  a  third 
who  fell  not  far  short  of  the  glory  of  being  great.  There  were  at 
least  three  others  who  were  little  inferior  to  that  third.  The 
two  great  poets  were,  of  course,  Tennyson  and  Browning ;  the 
one  who  stood  next  to  them,  midway  between  them  and  the 
remaining  three,  was  Arnold ;  the  remaining  three  were  Mrs. 
Browning,  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti,  and  Swinburne. 

In  addition  to  these  poets,  there  were  a  few  other  minor  ones 
who  should  receive  some  attention,  —  Macaulay,  Fitzgerald, 
Thomas  Lovell  Beddoes,  Arthur  Hugh  Clough,  Christina 
Rossetti,  and  William  Morris.     Of  American  poets  there  lived 


THE  VICTORIAN  ERA  297 

during  this  period,  Longfellow,  Emerson,  Lowell,  Holmes, 
Whittier,  Poe,  Whitman,  and  Lanier.  We  shall  consider  the 
minor  poets  before  the  greater. 

I.    Minor  Poets 

Macaulay  is  best  known  as  a  poet  by  his  Lays  of  Ancient 
Rome.  They  are  easily  read,  are  rapid  in  their  movement,  and 
vigorously  reflect  the  spirit  of  patriotism  which  the  national 
history  of  his  race  had  aroused  within  him.  Fitzgerald  will 
ever  be  famous  for  the  translation  of  the  Rubaiyat  of  Omar 
Khayyam,  though  the  effect  of  the  rather  weakly  philosophic 
teaching  of  the  verses  is  more  hurtful  than  helpful.  The  quat- 
rains are  interesting  and  very  delightful  for  their  uncommon 
musical  quality,  and  rather  striking  to  the  Occidental  reader  for 
their  Oriental  touches,  but  have  been  responsible  for  a  good 
deal  of  insincere  and  sentimental  pessimism  based  upon  little 
or  no  thinking.  Thomas  Lovell  Beddoes  should  be  better 
known  than  he  is,  for  his  poems.  Dream- Pedlary,  Love  in  Idle- 
ness, The  Dirge  for  Wolfram,  and  a  few  others  are  excellent. 
There  is  at  least  music  in  these  lines  from  the  first-named  poem, 

If  there  were  dreams  to  sell, 

What  would  you  buy? 
Some  cost  a  passing  bell, 

Some  a  light  sigh 
That  shakes  from  Life's  fresh  crown 

Only  a  roseleaf  down. 
If  there  were  dreams  to  sell  — 
Merry  and  sad  to  tell  — 
And  the  crier  rang  the  bell, 

What  would  you  buy? 

It  was  in  memory  of  Clough  that  Matthew  Arnold  wrote  his 
Thyrsis,  a  poem  ranking  with  the  memorial  poems  written  by 


298  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

Mihon,  Shelley,  and  Tennyson.  Clough  was  a  serious  poet, 
and  caught  many  of  the  fleeting  aspects  of  nature  and  fixed 
them  in  his  verse.  Doubtless  his  The  New  Decalogue,  a  highly 
satirical  poem,  is  the  best  known  of  his  poems.  It  is  an  excel- 
lent prod  to  the  smug  citizen  of  our  time,  so  careless  in  matters 
of  religion.  He  wrote  nothing  better,  however,  than  these 
lines,  —  • 

While  the  tired  waves,  vainly  breaking 

Seem  here  no  painful  inch  to  gain, 
Far  back,  through  creeks  and  inlets  making, 

Comes  silent,  flooding  in,  the  main. 

Another  work  of  his  which  is  filled  with  fine  and  thoughtful 
verse  is  The  Bothie  of  Tober-na-Vuolich. 

Christina  Rossetti's  Goblin  Market  is  best  described  as 
"pretty,"  though  the  fantastic  nature  of  its  material  has  puzzled 
many  into  thinking  it  more  thoughtful  than  it  really  is.  But  her 
sonnets  under  the  title  of  Monna  Innominata,  fourteen  in  num- 
ber, are  very  beautiful.  Simple,  fine,  delicate,  perfect  in  their 
ease  and  in  the  clearness  with  which  they  reach  the  reader's 
mind,  —  one  does  not  hesitate  to  call  them  unsurpassed  in  the 
rapidity  with  which  one  may  read  them  and  feel  that  he  knows  at 
every  line  precisely  what  is  said  and  meant.  They  have  a  spon- 
taneous flow,  a  quickness  of  movement,  refreshing  to  one  who 
gives  much  time  to  the  study  of  the  sonnet,  for  from  the  pens 
of  most  poets  the  sonnet  has  seemed  a  most  labored  product. 
Her  sonnets  are  not  filled  with  profound  thought,  nor  with  over- 
whelming emotion;  but  for  beautifully  pure  style  they  are 
irresistible. 

William  Morris,  along  with  Christina  Rossetti,  Swinburne,  and 
D.  G.  Rossetti,  was  a  pre-Raphaelite,  that  is,  one  of  a  group  of 
artists  who  tried  to  work  as  did  the  painters  of  Italy  in  the  four- 


Poets'  Corner,  Westminster  Abbey,  London 


tHE  VICTORIAN  ERA  299 

teenth  century,  the  century  just  prior  to  the  one  in  which 
Raphael  lived  and  wrought.  They  tried  closely  to  copy  nature. 
Morris  was  as  much  a  prophet  of  socialism  as  Herbert  Spencer  was 
a  denouncer  of  the  slavery  which  he  predicted  the  socialists  would 
bring  upon  mankind,  and  he  was  a  poet  of  no  mean  order.  His 
The  Life  and  Death  of  Jason  did  what  few  long  epics  in  English 
have  succeeded  in  doing,  —  secured  a  wide  reading  audience,  — 
though  the  work  is  now  considered  not  equal  to  The  Earthly 
Paradise,  a  book  which  contains  twelve  narratives  of  classical 
origin  and  twelve  of  romantic.  His  Sigurd  the  Volsung  is  a 
grand  version  of  an  old  Teutonic  legend. 

In  America. — A  word  only  must  suffice  for  the  leading  American 
poets,  even  important  as  they  are.  They  are  entirely  worthy  of 
full  and  separate  handling  and  study  from  that  given  in  a  history 
covering  English  literature  as  a  whole.  Longfellow  was  the 
bringer  of  the  old  world's  culture  to  the  new.  Emerson  was  a 
most  sincere  but  usually  rather  unmusical  singer  of  his  own 
philosophic  moods  and  of  a  few  common  experiences  that  belong 
to  all  of  us.  Lowell  was  a  better  poet  than  he  reckoned  him- 
self to  be,  but,  after  all,  was  too  much  a  man  of  affairs,  too  much 
engaged  in  matters  other  than  literary,  to  write  many  excellent 
verses.  Holmes  was  America's  best  writer  of  occasional  verse. 
Whittier  was  an  even  more  practical  poet  than  Lowell,  giving 
his  life  chiefly  to  combating  the  evils  of  slavery,  and  yet  very 
successful  in  pure  poetry.  Poe  was  the  master  in  sheer  music. 
Whitman  wrote  much  that  it  is  difficult  for  the  normal  human 
being  to  consider  poetry,  and  yet  he  is  acknowledged  by  all  to 
have  produced  three  or  four  poems  worthy  of  comparison  with 
anything  written  by  any  American.  And  Lanier,  with  Corn, 
Ballad  of  Trees  and  the  Master,  and  The  Marshes  of  Glynn,  if  he 
has  not  yet  come  into  his  own  due  meed  of  praise,  will  not  fail 
to  do  so  in  time. 


300  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

2.   Major  Poets 

Tennyson,  Browning,  Arnold,  Rossetti,  Swinburne,  and  Mrs. 
Browning  remain  of  the  Victorian  poets  to  be  considered  in  this 
chapter.  Tennyson  and  those  who  wrote  chiefly  under  his  in- 
fluence have  been  spoken  of  as  the  Idyllic  school ;  Browning 
and  those  he  inspired,  including  Mrs.  Browning,  as  the  Psy- 
chological school ;  Rossetti  and  Swinburne  as  members  of  the 
pre-Raphaelite  group ;  and  Arnold  and  Swinburne  as  members  of 
the  Renaissance  group  in  the  nineteenth  century.  It  will  thus 
be  seen  that  Swinburne,  being  in  two  groups,  has  the  distinction 
of  not  being  easy  to  classify. 

The  lesser  four  of  the  major  poets.  —  It  will  be  simpler  for  us 
to  consider  Rossetti,  Swinburne,  Mrs.  Browning,  and  Arnold 
before  the  greater  poets,  even  though  the  two  greater  began 
their  work  earlier  than  these  four. 

John  Ruskin  had  highly  praised  the  decorative  qualities  of 
medieval  art,  accuracy  in  copying  nature  in  all  art,  strictness 
of  line,  and  strength  in  color,  and  had  maintained  that  things 
reproduced  in  art  should  be  reproduced  in  all  details  for  their 
truth  rather  than  for  what  most  men  would  call  their  beauty. 
The  two  Rossettis,  William  Morris  to  some  extent,  and  Swin- 
burne also,  were  much  taken  with  these  teachings  of  Ruskin, 
and  gave  themselves  to  the  study  of  medieval  life  and  culture, 
being  attracted  particularly  by  the  painters  coming  before 
Raphael.  They  became  greatly  interested  in  the  medieval 
ways  of  doing  things,  and  undertook  to  make  the  same  and  simi- 
lar patterns  in  their  work  of  painting ;  this  they  carried  over  into 
poetry.  Poetry  with  them  was  a  pattern  to  be  woven  after  the 
fashion  of  the  forms  of  nature,  with  all  of  her  loving  fidelity 
in  treatment  of  detail,  with  all  of  her  delicacy,  all  her  strength, 
and  all  her  riot  of  color.     Christina  Rossetti's  work  has  al- 


THE  VICTORIAN  ERA  301 

ready  been  outlined.  That  of  William  Morris  has,  also;  but 
it  should  be  said  in  this  connection  that  it  will  be  evident  from 
the  recollection  of  his  poetry  that  one  who  would  classify  would 
find  something  of  the  same  difficulty  in  including  him  within 
a  definite  group  as  in  so  including  Swinburne. 

Rossetti.  —  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  began  publishing  poetry 
in  1850,  but  did  not  achieve  phenomenal  success  until  as  late 
as  1870,  when  the  poems  he  had  buried  in  his  wife's  coffin  in  1862 
were  exhumed  and  printed.  Rossetti,  as  his  name  indicates, 
was  of  Italian  blood  upon  his  father's  side.  All  the  pre-Raphael- 
ites  were  great  lovers  of  physical  beauty,  and  Rossetti  came 
near  accomplishing  what  the  "  naturalists  "  of  the  early  roman- 
ticist days  in  the  late  eighteenth  century  had  desired  to  accom- 
plish. It  may  be  more  fair  to  think  of  him  as  very  like  Keats 
rather  than  like  any  other  of  the  great  poets.  It  is  not  easy  to 
classify  his  poetry.  One  may  think  of  his  (i)  sonnets,  espe- 
cially the  beautiful  ones  in  The  House  of  Life.  Then  The  King's 
Tragedy  is  among  his  (2)  ballads  the  best  of  all.  There  is  also 
that  despairing  but  very  beautiful  (3)  song.  The  Woods  purge. 
Other  poems,  beautiful  in  form  and  well  balanced  in  thought 
and  feeling,  are  The  Blessed  Damozel,  My  Sister^s  Sleep,  The 
Burden  of  Nineveh,  Rose  Mary,  and  A  Last  Confession.  The 
last  of  these  five  includes  a  description  of  a  girl,  which  a  painter 
could  easily  transfer  to  canvas.  The  first  of  the  five  is  the  most 
familiar  to  readers  of  English  poetry.  It  is  rather  dreamy, 
but  highly  imaginative,  and  magnificent,  also.  The  first  two 
stanzas  present  a  picture  as  natural,  as  vivid,  and  as  delicate 
as  an  angel-piece  by  Fra  Angelico  : 

The  blessed  Damozel  leaned  out 

From  the  gold  bar  of  Heaven ; 
Her  eyes  knew  more  of  rest  and  shade 

Than  waters  stilled  at  even : 


302  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

She  had  three  lilies  in  her  hand, 

And  the  stars  m  her  hair  were  seven. 

Her  robe,  ungirt  from  clasp  to  hem, 

No  wrought  flowers  did  adorn, 
But  a  white  rose  of  Mary's  gift, 

For  service  meetly  worn ; 
And  her  hair  lying  down  her  back 

Was  yellow  like  ripe  com. 

And  there  is  the  real  flesh  and  blood  of  Fra  Lippo  Lippi's  pic- 
tures in  the  stanza : 

And  still  she  bowed  above  the  vast 

Waste  sea  of  worlds  that  swarm ; 
Until  her  bosom  must  have  made 

The  bar  she  leaned  on  warm, 
And  the  lilies  lay  as  if  asleep 

Along  her  bended  arm. 

Swinburne.  —  Algernon  Chairles  Swinburne  wrote  much  that 
is  very  unwholesome,  but  also  much  that  is  of  profound  beauty. 
Throughout  all  of  the  latter  there  is  a  great  deal  of  mellow  music 
and  of  wisdom.  Frequent  passages  of  such  sane  and  helpful 
thinking  as  the  following  redeem  many  other  passages  in  which 
the  baser  passions  have  been  too  much  exalted  from  their  sub- 
ordinate sphere : 

For  not  the  difference  of  the  several  flesh 
Being  vile  or  noble  or  beautiful  or  base 
Makes  praiseworthy,  but  purer  spirit  and  heart 
Higher  than  these  meaner  mouths  and  limbs,  that  feed, 
Rise,  rest,  and  are  and  are  not. 

Swinburne's  first  production  of  note  was  a  drama,  TJu 
Queen-Mother,  showing  much  dramatic  intelligence,  but  strongly 
imitative  of  the  Elizabethan  methods.  In  1865  was  published 
his  best  work  of  all,  Atalanta  in  Calydon,  one  of  the  great  poems 


THE  VICTORIAN  ERA  303 

of  the  nineteenth  century.  It  was  also  a  drama,  but  in  the 
Greek  manner,  as  it  was  Greek  in  subject,  following  the  well- 
known  and  fine  story  of  the  beautiful  huntress,  Atalanta.  The 
choric  singing  in  this  drama  is  magnificent  in  its  eloquence  and 
exquisite  in  its  melody.  There  is  in  the  poem  much  of  the  revo- 
lutionary spirit  which  was  characteristic  of  Swinburne.  Al- 
though pure  Greek  in  style,  this  drama  is  decidedly  mixed  in 
thought  and  sentiment,  Swinburne  pouring  through  the  Greek 
molds  much  of  modern  destructive  thought.  But,  having 
worked  through  the  Elizabethan  and  the  Greek  methods,  out 
of  this  labor  came  the  fine  finish  which  distinguishes  his  work 
from  1865  on.  Yet  in  his  next  volume,  entitled  Poems  and 
Ballads,  many  of  the  pieces  so  ruthlessly  exalt  the  worser  pas- 
sions that  great  numbers  of  people  of  deep  sensibility  are  still 
offended  by  them :  but  in  the  volume  which  followed  it,  Songs 
before  Sunrise,  the  passionately  musical  soul  of  the  author  has 
risen  from  abandonment  to  enfranchisement.  Swinburne  now 
becomes  a  prophet  of  Freedom,  of  Nature,  and  of  Man,  and  with 
high  thought  devotes  his  acute  vision  and  keen  sharpness  of 
music  to  the  interests,  riot  of  self,  the  individual,  but  of  human 
society.  Mater  Dolorosa,  Mater  Triumphalis,  and  The  Obla- 
tion are  among  the  loveliest  things  he  has  written. 

Swinburne's  work  is  filled  with  eloquent  verses  such  as 

My  song  is  in  the  mist  that  hides  thy  morning, 

My  cry  is  up  before  the  day  for  thee ; 
I  have  heard  thee  and  beheld  thee  and  give  warning, 

Before  thy  wheels  divide  the  sky  and  sea. 

And  he  is  abundant,  too,  in  such  passionate,  crying  music  of  pure 
beauty  as 

Thou  art  more  than  the  Gods  who  number  the  days  of  our  temporal  breath  ; 
For  these  give  labour  and  slumber ;  but  thou,  Proserpina,  death. 


304  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

Mrs.  Browning.  —  Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning  wrote  verse  of 
value  as  early  as  1826,  twenty  years  before  she  met  Robert 
Browning,  but  Casa  Guidi  Windows,  Aurora  Leigh,  A  Child's 
Grave  at  Florence,  and  Sonnets  from  the  Portuguese  did  not  come 
until  after  that  meeting.  It  was  not  until  she  was  past  forty 
years  of  age  that  she  composed  really  excellent  verse.  Mrs. 
Browning's  poetic  feeling  was  sane  and  just,  her  power  to  see 
poetically  was  eminent  in  its  clearness,  but  she  did  not  have  a 
good  ear  for  sound,  as  her  bad  rhymes  so  often  witness,  and  she 
frequently  failed  to  write  good  poetry  when  she  attempted  to 
translate  feeling  into  thought.  As  a  perfect  workman  she  is 
not  the  greatest  poetess  who  has  written  in  English ;  in  that 
she  is  surpassed  by  Christina  Rossetti. 

Casa  Guidi  Windows  took  its  title  from  the  Florentine  home 
in  which  she  and  her  husband  lived,  and  voiced  the  inspiration 
of  the  struggle  of  Italy  to  free  itself  from  the  domination  of 
Austria.  Aurora  Leigh  is  a  metrical  romance,  or  a  sort  of  verse 
novel-with-a-purpose,  not  unlike,  in  that  respect,  Coventry 
Patmore's  Angel  in  the  House.  A  Child's  Grave  at  Florence 
came  from  the  woman's  own  shadowed  experience.  But  it  is 
the  Sonnets  from  the  Portuguese,  misleading  in  title,  except  as 
to  the  word  "  Sonnets,"  upon  which  her  final  fame  even  so  soon 
as  our  day  is  seen  to  rest.  And  yet  here  and  there  throughout 
her  other  poems  she  showed  a  breadth  of  view  characteristic 
of  large-minded  women,  one  which  transcended  the  narrow 
national  views  of  most  English  and  Continental  poets;  and 
she  had  a  power  of  composing  epigram  which  was  most  striking, 
as,  for  example,  the  line  describing  what  happened  upon  the  fall 
of  Napoleon,  — 

And  kings  crept  out  again  to  feel  the  sun. 

Mrs.  Browning's  sonnets  have  been  extravagantly  praised, 
even  to  saying  that  they  are  the  best  since  Shakespeare's,  but, 


THE   VICTORIAN  ERA  305 

while  they  do  express  certain  things  which  cannot  be  found 
elsewhere,  yet  it  can  hardly  be  held  that  they  are,  as  poetry, 
equal  to  the  sonnets  of  Wordsworth  or  of  Milton.  They  ex- 
press both  the  humble  and  the  exalted  love  of  a  woman's  heart 
for  Robert  Browning,  but  they  are  neither  so  subtle  nor  so 
melodious  as  to  be  ranked  with  the  greatest  sonnets.  It  is 
impossible  for  a  true  lover  of  poetry  to  overlook  the  numer- 
ous and  astonishing  defects  of  her  verse.  One  mourns  that  he 
is  compelled  to  see  them,  for  he  would  like  to  fix  his  attention 
exclusively,  if  that  were  possible,  upon  such  glorious  things 
as  the  sonnet  opening  with 

If  thou  must  love  me,  let  it  be  for  naught 
Except  for  love's  sake  only  — 

Arnold.  —  Matthew  Arnold  was  born  in  1822.  It  was  not 
until  1865  that  he  began  to  make  much  impression  by  his  prose 
writings;  but  between  1849  and  1855  he  had  made  a  very  defi- 
nite place  for  himself  with  those  who  read  poetry,  and  a  place 
the  like  of  which  he  alone,  in  English  poetry,  has  filled.  No  one 
else  has,  in  English  poetry,  written  with  such  philosophic  seren- 
ity of  thought,  nor  does  any  one  else  have,  in  quite  such  large 
measure  as  in  Arnold's  writing,  the  lucidity,  flexibility,  and 
sanity  of  the  classical  spirit.  His  love  of  Goethe  and  of  the 
Greeks  aided  in  this  respect  his  native  endowment  of  tempera- 
ment. Arnold  had  an  inborn  love  for  nature,  too ;  but  it  was  as 
a  student  of  Wordsworth  that  he  gained  a  definite  point  of  view 
and  a  strong  power  of  vision  in  relation  to  nature.  Above  all, 
Arnold  was  distinguished  for  his  intellectual  sincerity,  his  unfal- 
tering trust  in  reason,  his  unwavering  loyalty  to  the  high  white 
star  of  truth. 

'  That  Arnold  spoke  out  much  more  clearly  in  his  great  prose 
than  in  his  still  greater  poetry  is  the  reason  for  his  not  yet 

X 


3o6  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

holding  the  place  in  the  hearts  of  readers  of  poetry  that  he  de- 
serves to  hold.  He  was  a  more  faultless  artist  than  either  Tenny- 
son or  Browning,  and  even  in  his  poetry  he  was  more  of  a  con- 
veyor of  ideas  than  any  other  author  of  his  day.  The  fact  that 
he  knew  he  was  greatly  under  the  influence  of  Goethe,  the 
Greeks,  and  Wordsworth  kept  his  poetical  voice  more  subdued, 
however,  than  it  otherwise  would  have  been.  But  the  classic 
character  of  his  verse  will  ever  be  a  unique  novelty  to  the  reader 
of  English  verse  down  to  Arnold's  day,  particularly  unique  and 
novel  to  one  who  is  unfamiliar  with  the  ancient  classical  poetry. 
And  yet  the  grace  and  feeling  and  music  of  the  romantic  spirit 
are  the  content  of  this  austere  and  "  correct,"  c\a,ssica\\y  formed 
poetry  of  Arnold's.  The  effect,  therefore,  of  his  poetry  is  very 
different  from  that  of  the  "  correct  "  verse  of  Alexander  Pope, 
which  was  lacking  in  grace  and  feeling  and  music. 

Arnold's  first  real  contribution  to  permanent  literature  was 
in  the  volume  entitled  The  Strayed  Reveller,  and  Other  Poems, 
1849.  In  this  volume  there  was  included  The  Forsaken  Mer- 
man, one  of  his  best  poems,  wonderful  for  its  pathos,  and  for  the 
beautiful  pictures  of  the  sea  caverns : 

Children  dear,  was  it  yesterday 
We  heard  the  sweet  bells  over  the  bay? 
In  the  caverns  where  we  lay, 
Through  the  surf  and  through  the  swell, 
The  far-off  sound  of  a  silver  bell  ? 
Sand-strewn  caverns,  cool  and  deep, 
Where  the  winds  are  all  asleep ; 
WTiere  the  spent  lights  quiver  and  gleam, 
Where  the  salt  weed  sways  in  the  stream, 
Where  the  sea-beasts,  ranged  all  round, 
Feed  in  the  ooze  of  their  pasture  ground ; 
Where  the  sea-snakes  coil  and  twine, 
Dry  their  mail  and  bask  in  the  brine ; 


THE  VICTORIAN   ERA  307 

Where  great  whales  come  sailing  by, 
Sail  and  sail,  with  unshut  eye, 
Round  the  world  for  ever  and  aye? 
When  did  music  come  this  way? 
Children  dear,  was  it  yesterday? 

In  1852  Arnold  wrote  a  volume  entitled  Empedocles  on  Etna, 
containing  a  number  of  other  poems  besides  the  title-piece. 
Tristram  and  Iseult  is  the  best  known  among  the  other  poems. 
One  of  the  finest  of  its  passages  is  in  reference  to  Iseult  of  Ire- 
land :  * 

And  she,  too,  that  princess  fair, 
If  her  bloom  be  now  less  rare, 
Let  her  have  her  youth  again  — 
Let  her  be  as  she  was  then ! 
Let  her  have  her  proud  dark  eyes 
And  her  petulant  quick  replies  — 
Let  her  sweep  her  dazzling  hand 
With  its  gesture  of  command, 
And  shake  back  her  raven  hair, 
With  the  old  imperious  air ! 

Among  the  satisfying  lines  of  Empedocles  are  these : 

'Tis  Apollo  comes  leading 
His  choir,  the  Nine. 
—  The  leader  is  fairest, 
But  all  are  divine. 
They  are  lost  in  the  hollows ! 
They  stream  up  again ! 
What  seeks  on  this  mountain 
The  glorified  train? 

Another  volume  followed  in  1853,  containing  some  poems 
which  had  been  formerly  printed  and  some  new  ones.  The  new 
ones  are  now  famous  :  Sohrab  and  Rustum,  The  Church  of  Brou, 
The  Scholar  Gipsy,  and  Requiescat  were  among  them,  the  first 


3o8  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

a  much-read  story,  the  last  worthy  of  comparison,  for  its  beauty, 
with  Tennyson's  "  Break,  break,  break." 

Balder  Dead  and  Separation  were  newly  written  poems  in  a 
volume  published  in  1855.  Meropey  a  Tragedy  came  in  1858. 
In  1867  a  volume  entitled  New  Poems  contained  the  remainder 
of  Arnold's  best  poetry,  with  the  exception  of  the  beautiful  lines 
on  Westminster  Abbey.  This  volume  of  1867  included  most  of 
the  poems  of  the  kind  in  which  Arnold  excelled,  namely,  the 
elegy.  Among  them  were  Thyrsis,  Rugby  Chapel,  Heine'' s  Grave, 
Stanzas  from  the  Grande  Chartreuse,  and  Obermann  Once  More. 
Thyrsis,  like  Milton's  Lycidas,  Shelley's  Adonais,  .and  Tenny- 
son's In  Memoriam,  is  in  memory  of  a  dear  friend,  in  this  case 
Arthur  Hugh  Clough.  There  is  not  in  this  poem,  as  there  is 
not  in  the  other  great  elegies,  any  morbid  dwelling  upon  death. 
The  author  escapes  from  such  contemplation  easily  and  health- 
ily, though  sadly,  and  dwells  upon  hope. 

Empedocles  on  Etna  and  Merope  were  dramas  in  form.  They 
were  attempts  to  restore  in  drama  the  Greek  subject  matter  and 
execution.  Swinburne  in  Atalanta  in  Calydon  was,  h6wever, 
much  more  successful  in  the  endeavor  to  do  the  thing  that 
Arnold  attempted.  Yet  Shelley's  Prometheus  Unbound  is  greatly 
superior  to  all  three  of  these.  Still,  some,  if  not  even  a  great 
deal,  of  fine  poetry  is  in  both  the  dramas  by  Arnold. 

It  was  the  practice  during  the  mid-nineteenth  century  for 
a  great  author  to  lay  emphasis  upon  some  aspect  of  life  and 
the  means  to  a  greater  life.  With  Carlyle  it  had  been  strength, 
with  John  Stuart  Mill  it  had  been  liberty,  with  Ruskin  it  had 
been  nature,  with  Arnold  it  was  culture.  And  Arnold  took  up 
the  cause  of  culture  with  a  public-spirited  motive,  and  in  a 
public-spirited  way,  as  is  not  always  the  practice  of  the  self- 
styled  exponents  of  culture.  His  theory  of  poetry  was  a  vital 
one.    In  an  essay  on  Wordsworth,  he  said,  *'  It  is  important. 


Alfred  Tennyson 


THE  VICTORIAN  ERA  309 

therefore,  to  hold  fast  to  this :  that  poetry  is  at  the  bottom  a 
criticism  of  life ;  that  the  greatness  of  a  poet  lies  in  his  powerful 
and  beautiful  application  of  ideas  to  life,  —  to  the  question : 
How  to  live."  Truth  and  high  seriousness  in  substance,  and 
felicity  and  perfection  of  diction  and  manner,  are  the  qualities 
which  make  great  poetry,  he  taught ;  and  he  taught  also  that 
"  in  poetry,  as  a  criticism  of  life  .  .  .  the  spirit  of  our  race  will 
find,  ...  as  time  goes  on  and  as  other  helps  fail,  its  consola- 
tion and  stay."  Arnold,  however,  excepting  in  such  poems  as 
Sohrab  and  Rustum,  is  a  poet  to  be  read  by  one  late  rather  than 
early  in  his  studies,  because  for  their  full  enjoyment  his  poems 
require  so  much  of  culture  and  literary  interest. 

The  greater  two. — The  two  remaining  poets  present  the 
greatest  contrast  between  any  two  poets  contemporary  with  each 
other  that  can  be  found  in  the  history  of  English  writing.  But 
each  was  needed  to  accomplish  what  the  other  did  not  do ;  and 
so  between  them  we  are  fortunate  enough  to  have  the  most 
complete  and  full-rounded  body  of  poetic  observation  and  reflec- 
tion and  inspiration  of  life  which  literature  offers.  Tennyson 
was  the  one  who  may  be  said  to  have  almost  stood  still  during 
his  sixty  and  more  years  of  production;  Browning,  the  one 
who  moved  constantly  forward.  Each  attitude  has  its  ad- 
vantage. The  standing  still  permits  of  a  calmness  of  impres- 
sion and  of  workmanship  which  movement  forward  does  not 
allow;  while  change  and  development  furthers  and  leads  all 
progressive  life. 

Tennyson.  — During  at  least  fifty  years,  from  1842  to  1892, 
Tennyson  worked  at  one  level  of  achievement,  —  some  would 
say  for  sixty  years,  from  1832  to  the  year  of  his  death,  1892. 
And  his  work  was,  during  that  long  period,  almost  perfect  in 
its  skill  and  in  its  adequate  picturing  of  the  thought  and  life 
about  him.    The  poem  beginning 


3IO  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

Break,  break,  break, 

On  thy  cold  gray  stones,  O  Sea ! 

published  in  1842,  and  the  lyric  entitled  Crossing  the  Bar,  written 
on  his  deathbed  in  1892,  are  equal  in  technical  delicacy  of  form, 
and  equal  in  what  we  should  expect  from  youth  and  age  in  a 
similar  mood.  It  was  this  technical  excellence  of  this  truly 
master  hand  which,  among  other  writers,  kept  English  poetry, 
despite  many  desperate  spasmodic  attempts  to  break  through 
and  away,  at  more  or  less  of  a  standstill  in  form  for  half  a 
century. 

Tennyson  had  five  technical  gifts,  richly  and  fully  developed 
from  an  early  age:  first,  the  faculty  of  close  observation  of 
minute  details  of  nature,  precisely  what  Wordsworth  excelled 
in;  second,  the  power  faithfully  and  happily  to  present  a 
sharply  accurate  picture  of  what  he  had  seen,  such  as  Chaucer 
was  most  fully  endowed  with ;  third,  the  skill  so  to  modulate 
the  elements  of  speech,  from  vowel  up  to  stanza,  as  to  create 
a  musical  accompaniment  both  to  picture  and  to  emotional  and 
intellectual  ideas,  such  as  Shelley  possessed  in  full  measure; 
fourth,  a  great  gift  in  varying  metrical  measure,  and  especially 
in  the  writing  of  blank  verse  distinguished  for  a  magnificence  in 
which  Milton  alone  exceeded  him ;  and,  fifth,  a  copious  vo- 
cabulary worthy  of  a  Keats.  Furthermore,  after  the  days  in 
which  he  had  given  himself  up  almost  entirely  to  perfecting  his 
technical  skill  (that  is  to  say,  after  1842),  Tennyson  showed  in 
each  of  his  more  important  productions  a  successful  impulse 
to  express  some  movement  in  popular  thought.  For  example, 
in  1847  the  question  of  feminine  education  expressed  itself  in 
The  Princess;  in  1850  In  Memoriam  reflected  the  air  of  philo- 
sophic religious  resignation  which  was  then  becoming  popular ; 
and  in  1855  Maud  was  Tennyson's  falling  in  line  with  the  outcry 
against  peace-at-any-price  commercialism. 


THE  VICTORIAN  ERA  311 

Tennyson's  first  period.  —  Alfred  Tennyson  was  born  in  1809, 
—  a  notable  year ;  for  in  that  year  there  were  born  also  Glad- 
stone, Darwin,  Mendelssohn,  Holmes,  Lord  Houghton,  Poe, 
Fitzgerald,  and  Lincoln.  In  1830  Tennyson  published  a  volume 
of  poems,  the  best  things  in  which  appear  in  later  editions  as 
Juvenilia,  or  things  written  in  youth.  Among  those  that  have 
survived,  the  best  are  Claribel,  Mariana,  The  Ode  to  Memory, 
The  Dying  Swan,  Recollections  of  the  Arabian  Nights,  and  The 
Sea  Fairies.  Tennyson  said  of  the  Ode  to  Memory  that  it  was 
based  upon  his  own  nature  and  upon  hints  from  the  incidents 
of  his  own  life  as  a  youth.  In  these  poems  the  most  marked 
qualities  are  picture  presentation  and  musical  accompaniment. 

The  volume  of  1833.  —  Another  volume  was  printed  in  1833. 
The  best  in  this  volume  are  The  Lady  of  Shalott,  The  Lotus- 
Eaters,  The  Palace  of  Art,  A  Dream  of  Fair  Women,  Mariana 
in  the  South,  The  Two  Voices,  and  Fatima.  Englishmen,  very 
naturally,  are  fond  of  another  little  poem,  without  title,  in  this 
group,  in  which  occur  the  stanzas,  — 

It  is  the  land  that  freemen  till, 

That  sober-suited  Freedom  chose, 

The  land,  where  girt  with  friends  or  foes 

A  man  may  speak  the  thing  he  will ; 

A  land  of  settled  government, 

A  land  of  just  and  old  renown, 
Where  Freedom  slowly  broadens  down 

From  precedent  to  precedent. 

Two  or  three  other  poems  of  this  volume,  such  as  The  May 
Queen^  are  very  popular.  Readers  sometimes  have  difficulty  in 
understanding  The  Lady  of  Shalott  and  The  Palace  of  Art. 
Canon  Ainger  quotes  Tennyson  as  thus  interpreting  the  change 
which  is  depicted  as  coming  over  the  Lady  of  Shalott :    "  The 


312  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

new-born  love  for  something,  for  some  one  in  the  wide  world 
from  which  she  had  been  so  long  excluded,  takes  her  out  of  the 
region  of  shadows  into  that  of  realities."  As  for  The  Palace 
of  Arty  Archbishop  Trench  once  said  to  its  author,  ''  Tennyson, 
we  cannot  live  by  art,"  to  which  Tennyson  replied,  "  The 
Palace  of  Art  \^  the  embodiment  of  my  own  belief  that  the  God- 
like life  is  with  man  and  for  man."  Pictures  and  some  genuine 
human  life  are  the  characteristics  of  the  poems  of  1833. 

The  Idylls,  1842.  —  In  1842  a  third  volume  was  published, 
entitled  English  Idylls  and  Other  Poems.  Edward  Fitzgerald 
says  that  Tennyson  never  rose  above  nor  even  ever  equaled 
the  poems  of  1842.  Tennyson  had  already  begun  to  brood  over 
the  Arthurian  legends  as  early  as  when  he  wrote  The  Lady  of 
Shalott,  and  now  in  Morte  d' Arthur,  Sir  Galahad,  and  Sir  Launce- 
lot  and  Queen  Guinevere  he  is  quite  deeply  into  the  mood  and 
matter  of  these  legends.  Opinions  differ  as  to  the  best  among 
these  poems  of  1842  ;  but  among  the  best  surely  are  Ulysses, 
Morte  d^ Arthur,  Love  and  Duty,  Locksley  Hall,  The  Vision 
of  Sin,  The  Poefs  Song,  the  exquisite  song,  "  Break,  break, 
break,"  St.  Agnes'  Eve,  and  Sir  Galahad.  Only  second  to  these 
come  The  Gardener's  Daughter,  Sir  Launcelot  and  Queen  Guine- 
vere, and  ''  Come  not  when  I  am  dead."  Will  Waterproofs 
Lyrical  Monologue  was  included  in  this  edition,  and  is  the  only 
volatile  piece  that  Tennyson  ever  wrote.  All  of  the  five  techni- 
cal gifts  which  we  have  (on  page  310)  stated  as  characterizing 
his  verse  are  found  developed  in  highest  degree  in  these  poems 
of  1842.  Of  all  this  group,  Ulysses,  "  Break,  break,  break," 
and  Morte  d' Arthur  are  unquestionably  the  superior  poems. 
In  (Enone  the  reader  who  has  come  straight  down  through  the 
history  of  English  verse  will  find  new  notes  in  blank  verse,  and, 
later  than  Ulysses,  he  will  find  in  one  of  the  lyrics  in  The  Prin- 
cess, the  one  beginning  "  Tears,  idle  tears,"  a  singing  quality 


THE  VICTORIAN  ERA  313 

for  the  first  time  bestowed  upon  blank  verse ;  but  it  is  in  Ulysses 
that  he  will  find  the  best  blank  verse  in  English  poetry.  In 
Ulysses  also  we  learn  how  rightly  to  take  both  "  the  thunder 
and  the  sunshine  "  of  life.  Dr.  John  Brown  has  said  of  "  Break, 
break,  break,"  that  "  Out  of  these  few  simple  words,  deep  and 
melancholy,  and  sounding  as  the  sea,  flows  forth  all  In  Memoriam, 
as  a  stream  flows  out  of  its  spring,  —  all  is  here."  Nothing  need 
be  added  to  indicate  its  importance.  In  Morte  d^ Arthur,  if  we 
learn  nothing  else,  we  at  least  learn  that  King  Arthur's  Round 
Table  "  was  an  image  of  the  mighty  world,"  and  that  is  a  good 
deal  for  the  student  of  literature  to  learn. 

That  Tennyson  at  the  age  of  thirty-three  was  intensely  inter- 
ested in  moral,  religious,  and  social  problems  is  evident  from 
The  Vision  of  Sin  and  from  Locksley  Hall.  The  latter  poem, 
though  spoken  in  the  tone  of  a  disappointed  lover,  yet  contains 
the  sum  of  its  author's  politics.  His  point  of  view  from  this 
time  never  altered  materially,  though  it  underwent  some  natural 
change  with  age.  After  this  date  Tennyson  never  did  anything 
entirely  new  in  kind  of  poetry,  —  that  is  to  say,  his  resources  as 
a  creative  craftsman  had  reached  their  apex.  But  he  produced 
much  noble  and  thoughtful  poetry,  and  a  great  deal  with  most 
exquisite  music  in  its  lines. 

Tennyson's  second  period.  —  Tennyson's  work  might  be  said 
to  have  closed  its  first  period  in  1842.  A  second  period  began  in 
1847  and  extended  to  1875.  At  the  latter  date  Tennyson  was 
producing  drama.  Between  the  two  dates  there  were  published 
The  Princess,  In  Memoriam,  Maud,  various  portions  of  the 
Idylls  of  the  King,  and  Enoch  Arden,  the  last  appearing  in  1864. 
It  is  sometimes  said  that  Tennyson  had  now,  by  1847,  passed 
out  of  his  lyrical  stage.  That  is  true  only  to  the  extent  that  the 
bulk  of  his  work  from  1847  ^^  is  not  chiefly  lyrical,  though  Maud 
and  The  Princess  contain  lyrical  songs  which  reveal  Tennyson 


314  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

to  be  so  excellent  in  musical  verse  that  not  even  Christina 
Rossetti  is  a  finer  singer  than  he. 

The  Princess.  —  The  Princess  compares  favorably  in  its 
mock-heroic  tone  with  Pope's  The  Rape  of  the  Lock;  and  by 
way  of  contrast  it  is  a  first-class  example  of  the  romantic  as 
against  the  "  classical  "  poetry.  It  is  one  of  the  most  pleasing 
poems  in  the  language,  largely  because  of  the  lyrics  that  are  in- 
cluded within  it.  Tennyson's  love  of  color,  rich  as  that  of  Keats, 
his  accuracy  of  observation  of  natural  things,  animate  and  in- 
animate, his  keeping  abreast  of  the  thought  movements  in  his 
day,  are  all  revealed  in  The  Princess;  but,  again,  it  is  the  lyrical 
songs  here  and  there  that  are  the  true  and  fine  poetry  of  the  piece. 
*'  Tears,  idle  Tears,"  "  Sweet  and  low,"  and  "  The  splendour 
falls  on  castle  walls,"  are  as  fine  songs  as  can  be  found  in  the 
pages  of  literature. 

In  Memoriam.  —  In  Memoriam  was  written  in  memory  of 
Arthur  Henry  Hallam,  a  brilliant  youth  who  had  been  engaged 
to  Tennyson's  sister  at  the  time  of  his  death.  Tennyson  was 
deeply  moved  by  Hallam's  death,  and  in  canto  V  gives  the 
reason  for  his  beginning  the  poem : 

But,  for  the  unquiet  heart  and  brain, 

A  use  in  measured  language  lies ; 

The  sad  mechanic  exercise, 
Like  dull  narcotics,  numbing  pain. 

The  poem  is  best  studied  by  dividing  it  into :  introductory  can- 
tos, I  to  XXVII ;  first  cycle  of  cantos,  XXVIII  to  LXXVII ; 
second  cycle,  LXXVIII  to  CHI ;  third  cycle,  CIV  to  CXXXI 
(a  Retrospect  in  cantos  CXX  to  CXXXI),  and  an  epithala- 
mium  or  wedding  hymn  at  the  close.  Each  cycle  of  cantos  takes 
the  reader  through  a  year.  With  each  recurrent  season  of  the 
year  the  author's  feelings  are  a  little  less  sad,  until  at  the  very 


THE  VICTORIAN  ERA  315 

end  he  rises  to  the  triumphant  faith  that  his  friend  lives  in 
God, 

That  God,  which  ever  lives  and  loves, 
One  God,  one  law,  one  element, 
And  one  far-ofiF  divine  event, 
To  which  the  whole  creation  moves. 

We  may  note  a  very  few  interesting  points  in  the  cantos.  The 
first  canto  begins  with  an  appropriate  reference  to  Goethe. 
Canto  XL VIII  contains  a  phrase  which  best  of  all  describes 
the  lyrics  in  the  poem,  —  "  Short  swallow-flights  of  song." 
Canto  LIV  has  within  it  more  quoted  lines  than  any  other.  Per- 
haps the  last  quatrain  in  canto  LVII  is  the  best  example  of  the 
peculiar  effect  of  the  meter  employed  throughout  the  poem. 
Canto  LXXXVI  is,  poetically,  the  high-water  mark  of  the  poem. 
Canto  CXXVI  is  a  wonderfully  fine  lyric,  the  most  stately  in 
the  poem,  though  not  so  imaginative  as  LXXXVI. 

The  highest  value  of  In  Memoriam  is  its  expression  of  a 
thought  which  met  the  need  of  the  generation  during  the  life 
of  which  it  was  written.  The  thought  is  that  man's  hope  is 
rather  in  the  ultimate  destiny  of  humanity  in  a  future  life,  than  in 
any  change  here  which  will  remake  the  present  life. 

Maud.  —  Maud  is  the  next  great  poem  which  Tennyson  pub- 
lished.    It  sprang  from  lines  printed  in  1836,  beginning 

O  that  'twere  possible 
After  long  grief  and  pain, 

and  now  included  in  Part  II  of  Maud,  This  poem  is  a  Mono- 
drama  ;  that  is,  it  is  concerned  with  the  revelation  of  action  with 
but  one  character  involved.  Tennyson's  mastery  of  lyric  verse 
is  at  its  best  in  the  songs  of  Maud.  An  interesting  fact  is 
noted  by  Aubrey  de  Vere,  that  in  the  love-complexities  of  this 
poem  the  birds  take  a  vehement  part.     In  the  sonnet  beginning 


3l6  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

"  Cold  and  clear-cut  face,  why  come  you  so  cruelly  meek  " 
there  is  a  very  fine  anapestic  movement.     The  verses  beginning 

Go  not,  happy  day, 
From  the  shining  fields 

illustrate  well  a  type  of  trochaic  movement.  The  lyrics  Tenny- 
son himself  liked  best  were  the  one  from  which  the  poem  grew, 
mentioned  above,  and  the  one  with  the  opening  line  '*  I  have 
led  her  home,  my  love,  my  only  friend,"  yet  we  are  inclined  to 
think  that  the  lyric  beginning  ^'  Come  into  the  garden,  Maud," 
is  superior  to  them,  and,  in  fact,  the  best  lyrical  work  since 
Keats  and  Shelly.  The  reader  is  dull  of  ear  who  fails  to  hear 
the  music  in 

And  the  soul  of  the  rose  went  into  my  blood 

As  the  music  clash'd  in  the  hall ; 
And  long  by  the  garden  lake  I  stood, 

For  I  heard  your  rivulet  fall 
From  the  lake  to  the  meadow  and  on  to  the  wood, 

Our  wood,  that  is  dearer  than  all ! 

From  the  meadow  your  walks  have  left  so  sweet 

That  whenever  a  March-wind  sighs 
He  sets  the  jewel-print  of  your  feet 

In  violets  blue  as  your  eyes, 
To  the  woody  hollows  in  which  we  meet 

And  the  valleys  of  Paradise. 

A  most  beautiful  lyric  also  is  one  beginning 

Maud  with  her  exquisite  face, 

And  wild  voice  pealing  up  to  the  sunny  sky. 

The  finest  and  most  weighty  line  in  the  whole  poem  is  the 
next  to  the  last  line,  — 

I  have  felt  with  my  native  land,  I  am  one  with  my  kind. 


THE  VICTORIAN  ERA  317 

The  whole  poem  admits  easily  of  dramatic  analysis  through 
tragic  suspense  and  crisis  of  upward  movement  to  a  resolution 
at  the  close. 

Maud  was  censured  at  the  time  of  its  publication  as  having 
been  written  against  Quakers.  That  was  unfair;  for,  while 
Tennyson  did  bring  out  in  the  poem  that  there  are  curses  which 
peace  sometimes  brings  that  are  worse  than  those  brought  by 
war,  yet  his  attack  was  only  upon  the  peace-at-all-price  men. 

More  idylls.  —  Tennyson  did  not  equal  Milton  in  the  stateli- 
ness  of  his  blank  verse,  but,  beginning  with  four  of  the  idylls 
in  Idylls  of  the  King,  in  1859,  and  continuing  through  additional 
idylls  until  1885,  he  wrote  the  finest  non-dramatic  blank  verse 
in  English,  with  the  exception  of  that  in  Paradise  Lost  and  in 
his  own  Ulysses.  The  finest  blank  verse,  —  but  the  exceptional 
high  quality  of-  the  Idylls  as  poetry  is  open  to  question. 
Fineness  of  style  alone  does  not  make  great  poetry.  Tennyson 
in  these  idylls  attempted  both  to  give  a  picture  of  human  pro- 
gress and  to  portray  human  characters  in  this  progress ;  but  in 
character  delineation  the  idylls  are  weak,  with  an  occasional  ex- 
ception. The  exceptions,  as  the  description  of  Modred  in  Guin- 
evere and  of  Lancelot  in  Lancelot  and  Elaine^  are  but  brief  flashes. 
As  an  **  Arthuriad,"  the  Idylls  of  the  King  have  too  much  of  a 
modern  air.  And  as  an  allegory  representing  "  Sepise  at  war  with 
Soul,"  as  Tennyson  himself  called  it,  the  inevitable  comparison 
with  The  Pilgrim's  Progress  reveals  the  meaning  in  Bunyan's 
work  to  be  clearer  and  the  human  figures  to  be  very  much  more 
real.  It  is  best,  then,  to  think  of  the  idylls  as  separate  poems, 
and  discriminate  between  them.  Thinking  thus  of  them,  it 
will  be  easy  to  accord  the  quality  of  greatness  to  The  Holy 
Grailj  The  Last  Tournament,  and  Guinevere. 

Enoch  Arden.  —  Enoch  Arden  was  published  in  1864.  Its 
verse  is  beautiful,  and  the  author's  sympathy  with  the  homely 


3l8  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

English  rural  life  is  full  and  real.  It  has  been  a  very  popular 
poem,  because  the  story  of  it  is  an  affecting  one ;  but  its  rather 
weak  sentiment  and  the  failure  clearly  to  outline  its  characters 
make  the  poem  fail  to  give  the  impression  of  power  in  its  writer. 

Tennyson's  third  period.  Ballads.  —  Ballads  and  Other 
Poems  was  the  name  of  a  volume  which  appeared  in  1880.  Some 
of  Tennyson's  best  work  was  in  this  collection,  —  The  First 
Quarrel,  Rizpah,  The  Voyage  of  Maeldune,  The  Revenge,  and 
The  Defence  of  Lucknow,  the  last  two  being  the  best  war  songs 
in  English  since  those  of  Campbell.  There  is  much  that  is 
dramatic  in  the  character  of  these  two  war  songs,  but  Tennyson 
could  not  be  satisfied  to  bring  his  work  to  an  end  without  enter- 
ing the  field  of  drama  proper.  By  virtue  of  the  lyrics  in  ''  the 
wonderful  flower-show,"  as  Browning  called  Tennyson's  earlier 
verse,  Lord  Tennyson  stood  at  the  head  of  all  English  artists 
in  his  own  day ;  by  virtue  of  the  epic  narratives  of  his  mid- 
life he  stood  at  the  head  of  all  writers  in  English  literature  in  the 
handling  of  the  spirit  of  the  Arthurian  legends ;  but  he  must, 
he  thought,  before  he  ended  his  work,  attempt  to  do  what 
the  Elizabethans  had  done,  —  write  great  dramas.  He  did 
not  succeed  in  writing  great  dramas,  though  he  wrote  at  least 
three  good  ones,  Queen  Mary,  Harold,  and  Becket. 

The  Dramas.  —  One  reason  why  they  are  not  great  is  because 
Tennyson  failed  to  see  that  the  Elizabethan  way  of  constructing 
dramas  belonged  to  the  Elizabethan  time,  and  that  he,  late  in 
the  nineteenth  century,  could  not  do  precisely  what  had  been 
done  almost  three  centuries  before.  These  three  dramas  are  his- 
torical, as  their  titles  suggest,  and  to  one  who  has  a  fair  famil- 
iarity with  their  historical  background  they  are  very  interesting 
to  read.  Becket  was  a  success  upon  the  stage.  The  dramatic 
motive  of  struggle  between  church  and  state  embodied  in  Becket 
and  Henry,  and  the  dramatic  collision  in  Thomas  a  Becket 


THE  VICTORIAN  ERA  319 

himself  between  soldier  and  churchman  (for  he  was  both),  make 
many  thrilling  moments  in  the  play.  The  Foresters,  a  much 
lighter  play  in  four  acts,  with  Robin  Hood,  Friar  Tuck,  The 
Sheriff  of  Nottingham,  and  the  rest  of  them,  as  its  characters, 
has  also  met  with  success  upon  the  stage. 

His  last  verse.  —  Crossing  the  Bar  was  Tennyson's  *'  swan- 
song,"  and  is  known  and  sung  wherever  the  English  language  is 
spoken. 

Tennyson  was  a  lesser  man  in  some  qualities  than  Chaucer 
and  Spenser,  than  Shakespeare  and  Milton,  than  Coleridge  and 
Wordsworth,  than  Shelley  and  Keats,  but,  with  the  exception 
of  Shakespeare,  he  was  superior  to  any  of  them  in  the  re- 
sourcefulness and  originality  of  his  harmonic  measures. 

Browning.  The  content  of  his  poetry.  —  Robert  Browning, 
born  in  181 2,  was  most  romantic  in  his  youth,  even  going  to  the 
extent  of  an  almost  positive  conviction  that  two  nightingales 
which  had  settled  in  his  father's  garden  at  Camberwell  were 
the  souls  of  Shelley  and  Keats  who  had  returned  to  sing  to  the 
one  young  person  in  all  the  world  who  understood  and  rightly 
adored  them.  Facts  and  attitudes  of  mind  and  heart  of  this 
kind  in  his  life  were  forgotten  later,  and  still  are,  by  those  who 
have  devoted  themselves  to  looking  at  Browning  from  one 
point  of  view  only,  that  of  his  thought,  or  ''  philosophy."  The 
truth  is,  that  Browning's  mind  was  passionately  romantic  his 
whole  life  long.  It  is  only  gradually  that  readers  are  coming 
to  understand  that  the  one  thing  his  poetry  actually  overflows 
with  is  the  idea  that  love  is  the  highest  of  all  possible  relation- 
ships among  mankind,  that  it  is  so  because  it  presents  the  highest 
of  all  opportunities  for  spiritual  growth  and  attainment,  and 
that  through  it  will  come  the  triumph  of  the  life  of  man. 

The  leading  poems.  —  Browning's  most  important  poems 
were  these,  with  the  times  of  their  publications : 


320  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

I.  Pauline  J  1833. 

II.  Paracelsus,  1835. 

III.  Strafford,  1837. 

IV.  Pippa  Passes,  1841. 

V.  Dramatic  Lyrics,  of  various  dates  in  the  forties  and  fifties. 

VI.  A  Blot  in  the  ^Scutcheon,  1843. 

VII.  Dramatic  Romances,  of  various  dates  in  the  forties  and  fifties. 

VIII.  A  Soul's  Tragedy,  1846. 

IX.  Christmas-Eve  and  Easter-Day,  1850. 

X.  Men  and  Women,  1855. 

XI.  Dramatis  Personce,  1864. 

XII.  The  Ring  and  the  Book,  1868-69. 

XIII.  Translation  of  the  Agamemnon  of  Mschylus,  1877. 

>    XIV.  Dramatic  Idylls,  1879-80. 

XV.  Asolando:  Fancies  and  Facts,  1889. 

His  style  and  subject  matter. — Among  these  are  some  of 
the  greatest  poems  of  the  century.  But  even  among  these 
greatest  ones  there  are  some  not  easy  for  the  moderate  intellect, 
at  least,  to  understand.  The  reason  they  are  not  easy  to  under- 
stand is  that  in  so  many  instances  they  are  (to  use  a  line  of  his 
in  a  curious  poem  called  Red  Cotton  Night-Cap  Country^  or  Turf 
and  Towers),  "  Impalpability  reduced  to  speech."  And  they 
are  rather  breathlessly  spoken  at  that.  It  is  not  a  mere  inci- 
dent or  thought  that  Browning  tries  to  write  of,  but  the  "  soul," 
as  he  would  put  it,  of  the  incident  or  of  the  thought. 

Browning  had  a  very  strong  tendency  to  use  the  very  first 
word  that  came  to  him ;  and,  because  of  the  curiously  varied  and 
large  range  of  his  vocabulary,  that  first  word  often  is  the  one  the 
average  person  would  think  it  most  unlikely  would  ever  occur  to 
him.  The  Virgilian  dignity  of  diction  cultivated  by  Tennyson 
and  those  most  deeply  influenced  by  him  was  farthest  from 
Browning's  choice  of  wording.  And  yet  he  was  not  so  *'  ob- 
scure," as  he  is  frequently  said  to  have  been,     Rather  is  this  the 


THE  VICTORIAN  ERA  321 

case,  —  that  his  readers  are  unwilling  to  understand  that  he 
saw  more  swiftly  than  others  and  from  many  sides  at  the  same 
time,  and  that  he  undertook  to  express  all  these  views  at  once. 
The  result  is  that  Browning  never  allows  us  a  view  of  a  whole 
thing  or  incident  or  situation  or  soul-state  at  once,  —  he  keeps 
us  so  busy  trying  to  catch  a  glimpse  from  each  of  the  view- 
points he  makes  us  take.  Browning  is  altogether  too  "  life- 
like "  for  most  of  us  who  read  to  grasp  him  quickly.  In  the 
bulk  of  his  poetry  he  tries  to  be  what  he  calls  "  dramatic  in 
principle,"  that  is  (he  explains),  to  give  the  utterances  of 
imaginary  persons,  —  not  his  own  utterances.  In  following  out 
this  attempt  he  shifts  the  talk  of  his  characters  as  rapidly  as  it 
is  shifted  in  real  life,  —  and  that  is  hard  to  follow  when  it  gets 
into  cold  print. 

But  Browning's  style  was  a  boon  to  English  poetry,  for  the 
real  analytical  processes  of  the  human  mind  were  in  danger  of 
being  concealed  underneath  the  balanced  and  honeyed  flow  of 
the  Tennysonian  poetry. 

Love  and  the  triumph  of  life  in  the  face  of  all  its  hitherto 
supposed-to-be  enemies,  such  as  age,  failure,  and  approaching 
death,  —  that  is  the  chief  content  of  the  poetry  of  Robert  Brown- 
ing. So  far  Sisform  is  concerned.  Browning  believed  in  "  good 
draughtsmanship  and  right  handling,"  as  he  says  in  a  pref- 
ace he  wrote  in  1867.  He  constantly  attempted  dramatic 
form,  but  succeeded  in  securing  only  dramatic  tone.  This, 
however,  it  is  that  makes  the  work  of  Browning  unique,  — 
that  he  could  employ  a  Shakespearean  power  of  psychological 
analysis  and  secure  the  same  tone  of  intense  passion  and  critical 
situation  in  monologues  in  which  characters  dissected  their  own 
minds  or  revealed  their  souls  in  lyrical  speculation,  as  other 
poets  secured  by  the  clash  of  character  upon  character  revealed 
through  dialogue. 


322  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

To  1855.  —  Both  Pauline  and  Paracelsus  were  written  in  imi- 
tation of  the  ''  sun-treader,"  Shelley.  Pauline,  as  most  of  his 
poems  di4,  confined  itself  to  the  actions  of  the  human  soul,  not  to 
external  affairs,  nor  to  actions  of  the  soul  that  show  themselves 
openly  in  outward  ways.  For  a  first  attempt  it  is  a  powerful 
piece  of  work.  But  Browning  himself  did  not  think  much  of  it. 
In  a  copy  of  his  own,  he  wrote,  **  Only  this  crab  remains  of  the 
shapely  Tree  of  Life  in  my  fool's  paradise."  Paracelsus,  how- 
ever, is  a  very  great  poem.  Pauline  has  but  one  character 
speaking,  Paracelsus  has  four.  Yet  the  second  poem,  as  the 
first,  is  the  treatment  of  one  soul, — in  the  case  of  the  second, 
a  soul  in  converse  with  other  souls.  Some  of  the  strongest 
things  Browning  ever  said  are  in  Paracelsus: 

"This  perfect,  clear  perception —  which  is  truth." 

"To  Know 
Rather  consists  in  opening  out  a  way 
Whence  the  imprisoned  splendour  may  escape 
Than  in  effecting  entry  for  a  light 
Supposed  to  be  without." 

"God!    Thou  art  mind!" 

"God  is  the  perfect  poet 
Who  in  his  person  acts  his  own  creations." 

"  God !    Thou  art  love !    I  build  my  faith  on  that." 

"  Measure  your  mind's  height  by  the  shade  it  cdsts." 

"All  love  assimilates  the  soul 
To  what  it  loves." 

"  Love,  hope,  fear,  faith  —  these  make  humanity. 
These  are  its  sign  and  note  and  character." 

"  Progress  is 
The  law  of  life,  man  is  not  Man  as  yet." 


THE  VICTORIAN  ERA  323 

It  is  only  in  the  tenth  division  of  The  Ring  and  the  Book, 
entitled  "  The  Pope,"  that  Browning  expresses  his  profoundest 
thoughts  more  finely  than  in  Paracelsus. 

Paracelsus  has  five  divisions,  but  it  can  hardly  be  called 
a  five-act  drama.  But  Strafford,  which  the  actor  Macready  sug- 
gested that  Browning  should  write,  is  a  regular  acting  play,  and 
was  as  successful  upon  the  stage  as  most  poetic  dramas  ever 
have  been,  since  those  of  the  Elizabethans.  It  is  a  difficult 
play  because  it  is  political  as  well  as  poetic.  Mr.  Chesterton 
thinks  that  only  two  political  plays  have  ever  been  done  ad- 
mirably :  Shakespeare's  Julius  Ccesar  and  Rostand's  VAiglon, 
the  latter  a  nineteenth-century  French  play  dealing  with  the 
son  of  Napoleon  I.  The  subject  Browning  undertook  in  his 
political  play  was  a  large  one,  for  Strafford  (who  was  executed 
by  Charles  I)  was  one  of  the  greatest  of  England's  great  men 
in  both  intellect  and  character;  but  the  play  does  not  go 
very  well  with  us,  for  Strafford,  in  attempting  to  establish  a 
strong  official  despotism,  was  so  out  of  harmony  with  our 
present-day  ideas  that  we  have  difficulty  in  according  to  him 
the  tribute  of  greatness. 

Pippa  Passes  has  more  of  the  dramatic  spirit  in  it  than 
have  most  of  his  poems,  though  it  is  only  a  series  of  dramatic 
sketches  —  "  Morning,"  "  Noon,"  "  Evening,"  "  Night "  — 
rather  than  a  true  drama.  Prefacing  the  1907  edition  of  the 
poem  there  is  this  editorial  statement,  —  "  This  drama  is  hinged 
on  the  chance  appearance  of  Pippa,  a  poor  child,  at  work  all  the 
year  round  (save  one  day)  at  the  silk-mills  at  Asolo,  in  Northern 
Italy,  at  critical  moments  in  the  spiritual  life  history  of  the 
leading  characters  in  the  play.  Just  when  their  emotions,  pas- 
sions, motives  are  swinging  backwards  and  forwards,  Pippa 
passes  by,  singing  some  refrain,  and  her  voice  determines  the 
actions  and  fashions  the  destinies  of  men  and  women  to  whom 


324  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

she  was  unknown.  It  is  a  play  of  much  simplicity,  as  well  as 
of  rare  charm  and  beauty."  There  is  little  more  to  be  added, 
except  to  suggest  the  likeness  of  the  first  part,  "  Morning," 
to  Macbeth,  in  the  representation  of  crime  and  its  effect  upon 
Ottima  and  Sebald,  and  in  the  fact  that  it  is  Pippa's  song,  ending 

God's  in  his  heaven  — 
All's  right  with  the  world, 

which,  like  the  knocking  at  the  Gate  in  Macbeth,  summons  these 
two  people  back  to  the  light  of  common  day. 

The  Dramatic  Lyrics  contain  poems  which  refute  any  thought 
that  Browning  could  not  be  clear  or  could  employ  no  music  but 
that  of  discords.  The  "  Cavalier  Tunes  "  are  very  popular,  as 
also  are  Evelyn  Hope  and  Love  among  the  Ruins,  the  last-named 
being  one  of  the  most  musical  of  poems  in  English.  Here  is 
the  first  of  its  seven  stanzas,  — 

Where  the  quiet-colored  end  of  evening  smiles, 

Miles  and  miles 
On  the  solitary  pastures  where  our  sheep 

Half-asleep 
Tinkle  homeward  thro'  the  twilight,  stray  or  stop 

As  they  crop  — 
Was  the  site  once  of  a  city  great  and  gay, 

(So  they  say) 
Of  our  country's  very  capital,  its  prince 

Ages  since 
Held  his  court  in,  gathered  councils  wielding  far 

Peace  or  war. 

The  seventh  and  last  stanza  ends  with  Browning's  characteristic 
formula,  "  Love  is  best." 

A  Blot  in  the  ^Scutcheon  is  a  three-act  drama,  a  beautiful  stor)'^, 
and  has  been  successfully  presented  in  the  theater  within  our  own 
day. 


THE   VICTORIAN  ERA  325 

Among  the  Dramatic  Romances  the  most  read  are  The 
Glove,  The  Pied  Piper  of  Hamelin,  and  Porphyria' s  Lover.  Bet- 
ter than  these  is  The  Patriot,  and  greater  than  it  are  In  a  Gon- 
dola and  My  Last  Duchess,  and  the  most  perfect  thing  the  poet 
ever  wrote  is  thought  by  many  to  be  The  Last  Ride  Together. 

In  A  SouVs  Tragedy  are  found  some  of  the  characteristic  teach- 
ings of  Browning.     In  speaking  of  death  he  asks 

How  dare  we  go  without  a  reverent  pause, 
A  growing  less  unfit  for  heaven  ? 

And  at  the  end -of  this  two-act  "  drama  "  he  says,  "  You  only  do 
right  to  believe  you  must  get  better  as  you  get  older.  All  men 
do  so ;  they  are  worst  in  childhood,  improve  in  manhood,  and  get 
ready  in  old  age  for  another  world.  Youth,  with  its  beauty  and 
grace,  would  seem  bestowed  on  us  for  some  such  reason  as  to 
make  us  partly  endurable  till  we  have  time  for  really  becoming 
ourselves." 

Christmas-Eve  and  Easter- Day  are  religious  poems,  among 
the  world's  very  best.  There  is  general  agreement  that  Brown- 
ing is  foremost  among  religious  poets.  He  thought  the  essen- 
tial truths  of  religions  could  be  found  in  all  Christian  creeds. 
This  is  evident  from  stanza  XIX  of  the  first  of  these  two  poems. 
Browning's  religious  belief,  taking  his  poems  as  a  whole,  may 
be  summed  up  in  the  statement  that  Christianity  "  teaches 
a  universal  love,  and  that  this  love  was  embodied  in  a  divine 
Man,"  the  example  for  all  who  come  after  him.  Among  the  best 
passages  in  Christmas- Eve  are  these  two : 

"  God  who  registers  the  cup 
Of  mere  cold  water,  for  His  sake 
To  a  disciple  rendered  up, 
Disdains  not  His  own  thirst  to  slake 
At  the  poorest  love  ever  offered : 
And  because  my  heart  I  proffered, 


326  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

With  true  love  trembling  at  the  brim, 
He  suffers  me  to  follow  Him 
Forever,  my  own  way,  —  dispensed 
From  seeking  to  be  influenced 
By  all  the  immediate  ways 

That  earth,  in  worships  manifold, 
Adopts  to  reach,  by  prayer  and  praise, 

The  garment's  hem,  which,  lo,  I  hold ! " 

"  Earth  breaks  up,  time  drops  away, 
In  flows  heaven,  with  its  new  day 
Of  endless  life,  when  He  who  trod. 
Very  man  and  very  God, 
This  earth  in  weakness,  shame,  and  pain, 
Dying  the  death  whose  signs  remain 
Up  yonder  on  the  accursed  tree,  — 
Shall  come  again,  no  more  to  be 
Of  captivity  the  thrall. 
But  the  one  God,  All  in  all, 
King  of  kings.  Lord  of  lords, 
As  His  servant  John  received  the  words, 
'I  died,  and  live  f orevermore ! * " 


After  1855.  —  After  the  publication  of  Men  and  Women,  in 
1855,  there  was  little  doubt  among  even  those  who  had  been 
speaking  of  Browning  merely  as  "  that  unintelligible  man  who 
married  the  poetess,"  that  here  was  a  true  poet,  and  one  who 
soon  would  probably  be  considered  great.  Fra  Lippo  Lippi 
and  Andrea  del  Sarto  are  masterpieces.  Their  subject  matter 
is  of  special  interest  to  readers  who  are  already  interested  in 
art.  Consideration  of  art  is  continued  in  some  of  the  poems  in 
Dramatis  PERSONiE,  especially  in  A  Face  and  Aht  Vogler. 
But  the  moral  life,  and  the  life  of  ideals  generally,  is  also  pres- 
ent in  them.  One  of  the  better  stanzas  \n  Abt  Vogler  is  the 
tenth,  — 


THE  VICTORIAN  ERA  327 

All  we  have  willed  or  hoped  or  dreamed  of  good  shall  exist ; 
Not  its  semblance,  but  itself ;   no  beauty,  nor  good,  nor  power 
Whose  voice  has  gone  forth,  but  each  survives  for  the  melodist 
When  eternity  affirms  the  conception  of  an  hour. 
The  high  that  proved  too  high,  the  heroic  for  earth  too  hard, 
The  passion  that  left  the  ground  to  lose  itself  in  the  sky, 
Are  music  sent  up  to  God  by  the  lover  and  the  bard ; 
Enough  that  He  heard  it  once :  we  shall  hear  it  by-and-by. 

But  greater  than  these  poems  on  art  are  three  in  Dramatis 
Person^e  on  love  and  religion,  namely,  James  Lee's  Wife, 
Prospice,  and  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra.  Beautiful  almost  to  an  extreme 
is  Browning's  belief  in  love  as  the  highest  of  all  spiritual  op- 
portunities, and  loftily  heroic  is  his  faith  in  the  final  triumph 
of  life.  There  is  no  other  place  in  modern  poetry  to  find  so 
clear,  so  cheerful,  and  so  unshaken  a  certainty  that  life  and  God 
are  good  and  that  the  best  is  yet  to  be,  as  in  the  poems  of 
Robert  Browning,  especially  in  the  poems  just  mentioned. 

If  Browning  had  omitted  books  II,  III,  IV,  VIII,  and  IX 
from  the  twelve  books  of  The  Ring  and  the  Book,  this  poem 
over  which  he  spent  six  years  of  labor  would  be  more  widely  read 
than  it  is.  There  are  three  chief  characters  in  this  poem.  Count 
Guido,  the  girl  Pompilia,  and  the  priest  Caponsacchi,  and  there 
is  abundance  of  action  and  of  material  for  more  action,  but 
Browning  had  now  learned  that  he  could  not  well  handle  the 
dramatic  form,  and  hence  he  employs  the  dramatic  material 
with  the  dramatic  spirit  only  and  not  in  its  technical  form. 
Instead  of  the  drama-plan,  he  adopts  a  plan  which  permits  of  no 
development  of  character ;  in  the  first  book  to  tell  the  story,  and 
then  to  comment  upon  or  study  it  in  nine  following  books  from 
nine  different  points  of  view,  book  XI  reverting  to  the  view-point 
of  VII,  and  book  XII  being  an  epilogue.  Browning  impresses 
upon  us  that  in  any  argument  every  one  who  takes  part  in  it  is 


328  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

to  some  degree  right.  Another  thing  is  that  justice  is  neither 
something  delusive  nor  merely  a  matter  of  legal  administration, 
but  that  it  is  a  mysterious  thing,  which,  however,  can  be  meted 
out  only  when  truth  is  really  discovered ;  but  it  is  necessary  to 
listen  to  all  sides  with  largeness  of  heart  and  with  extreme  pa- 
tience. Because  the  poem  shows  that  it  is  possible  to  say  so 
much  of  tremendous  import  about  so  small  and  so  mean  things 
as  arise  for  consideration  in  the  poem.  The  Ring  and  the  Book 
has  been  called  "  the  great  epic  of  the  nineteenth  century,  .  .  . 
the  great  epic  of  the  enormous  importance  of  small  things.'* 
Guido,  Caponsacchi,  and  PompiUa  are  wonderfully  drawn 
characters,  Pompilia  one  of  the  best  in  literature.  The  book 
called  "  The  Pope  "  does  not  so  well  delineate  a  character.  But 
it  expresses  on  its  grandest  scale  the  philosophy  of  the  poet. 
To  this  Pope  stumblingblocks  in  this  world  are  intended  to  be 
used  as  stepping-stones ;  all  of  us  have  a  right  to  these  stumbling- 
blocks,  to  be  used  as  our  stepping-stones.  "  This  life  is  a  train- 
ing and  a  passage." 

Agamemnon,  translated  from  the  Greek  dramatist,  ^Eschylus, 
has  been  accused  of  being  almost  as  hard  for  the  English  reader 
as  the  Greek  itself.  It  is  not  easy  to  read,  for  it  is  almost  a 
literal  translation ;  but,  even  so,  it  carries  over  into  the  English, 
almost  unaltered,  the  tone  and  spirit  of  the  Greek  drama  itself. 

Of  the  Dramatic  Idylls  Pheidippides  is  much  read,  and 
Ivan  Ivanovitch  is  equally  worthy  of  being  much  read.  Tray 
is  Browning's  argument  against  vivisection. 

AsoLANDO :  Fancies  and  Facts  contains  Browning's  last 
poems,  and  was  published  after  his  death.  Reverie  is  perhaps 
the  chiefest  of  them  all.  In  all  the  universe,  this  poem  says, 
Power  came  first,  then  Knowledge,  revealing  that  Good  had  been 
made  manifest  in  the  exercise  of  Power,  —  ''In  all  things 
Good  at  best,"  — 


THE  VICTORIAN  ERA  329 

Then  life  is  —  to  wake,  not  sleep, 

Rise  and  not  rest,  but  press 
From  earth's  level  where  blindly  creep 

Things  perfected,  more  or  less, 
To  the  heaven's  height,  far  and  steep. 

Where,  amid  what  strifes  and  storms 
May  wait  the  adventurous  quest, 
Power  is  Love  —  ... 

From  the  first,  Power  was  —  I  knew. 
Life  has  made  clear  to  me 

That,  strive  but  for  closer  view, 
Love  were  as  plain  to  see. 

Epilogue  also  reveals  this  poet's  great  faith,  strong  endurance, 
and  shining  optimism,  —  his  unfailing  adherence  to  love  as  life's 
opportunity  and  to  the  belief  that  life  will  triumph  at  last. 

3.    Drama 

Drama  as  literature. — As  this  is  a  history  of  English  literature , 
not  much  can  be  said  about  the  drama  in  English  during  the 
nineteenth  century,  for  when  literary  men  turned  themselves 
to  the  writing  of  drama,  they  almost  uniformly  did  much  poorer 
work  than  in  any  other  form  of  their  labors,  and  when  writers 
of  plays  produced  what  succeeded  well  upon  the  stage,  it  was 
almost  uniformly  not  very  commendable  as  literature.  If 
"  any  representation  of  imaginary  persons  which  is  capable  of 
interesting  an  average  audience  assembled  in  a  theater  "  is 
dramatic,  as  Mr.  William  Archer  defiantly  asserts,  then  many 
chapters  might  be  given  to  a  treatment  of  dramatic  writing; 
but  we  can  here  be  interested  only  in  dramatic  literature.  In 
spite  of  the  fact  that  this  distinction  is  a  sore  point,  especially 
with  many  present-day  playwrights,  yet  the   distinction  must 


33©  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

be  made  by  the  historian  and  literary  critic.  No  matter  how 
many  hundreds  of  nights  a  play  may  run  upon  the  stage,  if  it 
does  not  give  evidence  that  the  writer  has  '*  felt,  seen,  thought, 
or  at  least  wondered,  with  a  deep  and  genuine  movement," 
if  it  does  not  give  evidence  that  the  writer  has  a  command  of 
the  resources  of  form,  especially  of  diction  (the  choice  and  order 
of  words),  and  if  the  rhythm  of  the  verse  or  prose,  whichever  it 
may  be,  is  no  more  than  patter  or  rattle,  then  that  play  can 
take  no  place  in  the  history  of  literature. 

Typical  nineteenth-century  dramas.  —  Coleridge's  Remorse 
(or  Osorio)  and  his  Zapolya  were  successful  within  the  theater  for 
a  few  nights,  but  they  have  no  more  place  than  mere  mention 
in  the  pages  of  literary  history.  Bulwer  Lytton's  The  Lady  of 
Lyons,  Richelieu,  and  Money  have  been  played  for  three  quar- 
ters of  a  century  and  more,  and  are  fairly  good  reading,  too. 
George  Eliot's  poems  all  suffer  from  heaviness.  Her  drama 
called  The  Spanish  Gipsy  is  no  exception.  Its  conception  is 
grand,  some  of  its  scenes  are  vivid ;  an  occasional  single  line,  and 
now  and  then  even  more,  may  be  found  to  be  excellent;  but 
the  most  ardent  admirer  of  its  author  cannot  make  a  good 
claim  for  this  drama  as  a  work  of  art.  Browning's  Straford 
does  not  admit  of  a  stage  revival,  though  that  most  pathetic 
play  A  Blot  in  the  ^Scutcheon  was  and  still  is  a  good  stage  play 
and  a  fairly  good  work  of  literary  art.  Tennyson's  Queen 
Mary,  Harold,  Becket,  and  The  Foresters  have  among  them  only 
one  play  which  has  been  quite  successful,  — Becket.  Byron's  Cain 
and  Shelley's  Cenci  are  not  acting  dramas.  Swinburne's  Ata- 
lanta  in  Calydon  is  a  good  restoration  of  the  Greek  drama,  but 
it  has  not  been  successful  on  the  stage.  As  literature  it  suffers 
from  a  fact  which  Greek  literature  of  all  the  European  literatures 
alone  does  not  suffer  from,  namely,  that  it  has  a  pattern  litera- 
ture to  be  modeled  after.    The  plays  of  T.  W.  Robertson, 


THE  VICTORIAN  ERA  331 

notably  Caste ,  and  of  W.  S.  Gilbert,  notably  Pygmalion  and 
Galatea,  are  readable  and  have  been  played  again  and  again  with 
success,  especially  Caste. 

The  best  literary  drama.  —  There  is  room  for  difference  of 
opinion  as  to  whether  Browning's  A  Blot  in  the  ^Scutcheon  or 
Tennyson's  Becket  is  the  best  play  of  the  century.  In  charac- 
terization, in  action,  and  in  the  union  of  the  two,  Tennyson's 
play  seems  the  better.  None  of  Arnold's  plays  is  equal  to  this 
one  of  Tennyson's,  because  Arnold  is  too  lyrical,  —  he  presents 
to  us  his  own  mind,  rather  than  represents  for  us  the  mind  of 
another.  And  in  Browning's  play  the  moral  teaching  is  made 
more  important  than  the  revelation  of  character,  and  the 
action  is  too  involved  for  a  successful  play.  It  will  not  be  pos- 
sible to  speak  with  certainty  of  the  dramatists  of  our  own  day, 
though  in  the  next  chapter  it  will  be  necessary  to  make  a  ten- 
tative estimate  of  several  of  them. 

QUESTIONS  AND  TOPICS  FOR  DISCUSSION 

1.  Under  what  heads  may  the  Uterature  of  the  Victorian  era  be  con- 
sidered? 

2.  Who  were  the  leading  historians  of  that  era?  Name  a  work  by  each 
of  three  of  them. 

3.  Name  the  three  greatest  novelists  of  the  Victorian  era,  and  two 
works  by  each. 

4.  Why  do  you  think  Dickens  has  been  so  immensely  popular  ? 

5.  If  you  have  seen  "Becky  Sharp"  played  upon  the  stage,  compare 
the  stage  treatment  with  Thackeray's  treatment  of  Becky  in  Vanity  Fair. 

6.  Which  do  you  prefer,  The  Mill  on  the  Floss  or  Silas  Marner? 
Why? 

7.  Of  novels  written  by  authors  of  this  period  who  are  called  "minor 
novelists,"  what  ones  have  you  read? 

8.  In  what  ways  does  Stevenson  seem  to  you  to  differ  from  the  fiction 
writers  of  the  middle  of  the  century?  With  how  many  novels  of  the  sea 
are  you  familiar  ? 


33^  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

9.  Consult  the  classification  of  short-stories  made  on  pages  390-392, 
and  then  classify  all  the  short-stories  you  have  read  of  those  that  were 
written  by  the  authors  mentioned  on  pages  275-278. 

10.  Describe  Macaulay,  Carlyle,  Arnold,  Newman,  Pater,  and  Ruskin 
as  critics.     Be  careful  to  distinguish  among  them. 

11.  Name  five  great  scientists  of  this  period  who  were  also  "men  of 
letters. "     Give  the  title  of  one  work  by  each. 

12.  Answer  the  question  asked  in  the  lines  quoted  from  Thomas  Lovell 
Beddoes,  page  297. 

13.  What  can  you  remember  having  read  of  the  poems  of  Matthew 
Arnold,  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti,  and  Mrs.  Browning? 

14.  Name  several  great  men  who  were  born  in  the  same  year  with  Tenny- 
son. 

15.  What  are  the  dates  bounding  the  periods  of  Tennyson's  production? 
Give  the  titles  of  two  chief  poems  in  each  period. 

16.  What  are  the  chief  qualities  of  the  poetry  of  Tennyson? 

17.  Do  you  prefer  story  or  picture  in  Tennyson? 

18.  Commit  to  memory  one  of  the  songs  in  The  Princess.  Also  one  of  the 
stanzas  of  In  Memoriam. 

19.  What  was  the  purpose  of  The  Princess?  The  purpose  of  In  Memo- 
riam ?    The  purpose  of  Maud  ? 

20.  Why  is  Enoch  Arden  so  popular  a  story? 

21.  Read  The  Testing  of  Sir  Gawayne  in  Marguerite  Merington's  "Festi- 
val Plays,"  and  then  compare  the  handling  of  the  Arthurian  characters  with 
Tennyson's  handling  of  them. 

22.  Name  four  Ballads  by  Tennyson. 

23.  After  reading  the  section  on  "The  Drama"  (pages  329-331)  analyze 
the  structure  of  Tennyson's  Becket,  making  a  graph  to  illustrate  your  analysis. 

24.  Why  do  Browning's  "Cavalier  Tunes"  read  so  easily? 

25.  What  do  you  think  is  the  purpose  of  Browning's  Tray? 

26.  Memorize  one  of  the  songs  in  Pippa  Passes. 

27.  What  are  Browning's  chief  religious  poems? 

23.  Read  Evelyn  Hope  and  Love  among  the  Ruins.  Is  Browning  a 
"singer"  as  well  as  a  "sayer"? 

29.  Name  the  chief  poets,  the  chief  essayists,  the  chief  novelists,  the  chief 
historians,  and  the  chief  short-story  writers  of  America  from  1837  to  1890. 
Who  is  the  greatest  in  each  group? 


THE  VICTORIAN  ERA 


333 


READING  LIST  FOR  THE  VICTORIAN  ERA 


Carlyle, 
J.  R.  Green, 
Macaulay, 


HISTORY 

History  of  the  French  Revolution.    Edited 

by  C.  R.  L.  Fletcher. 
Short   History   of  the   English   People. 

Revised  Edition  of  1899. 
History  of  England  from  the  Accession  of 

James  II.     "  Everyman's  Library." 


Charlotte  Bronte, 
Dickens, 


Thackeray, 
George  Eliot, 

Mrs.  Gaskell, 
Richard  Blackmore, 
Wilkie  Collins, 

Lewis  Carroll, 

Charles  Reade, 

Charles  Kingsley, 

Stevenson, 


NOVEL 

Jane  Eyre.     "Everyman's  Library." 

David  Copperfield,  A  Tale  of  Two  Cities^ 
Oliver  Twist,  Nicholas  Nickleby, 
Great  Expectations,  Hard  Times. 
"Everyman's  Library." 

Vanity  Fair,  Pendennis,  The  Virginians. 
"Everyman's  Library." 

Silas  Marner,  The  Mill  on  the  Floss, 
Romola,  Adam  Bede.  Winston's 
"Illustrated  Handy  Classics." 

Cranford.     Tauchnitz  Edition. 

Lorna  Doone.     Exmoor  Edition. 

The  Moonstone.  In  the  series  entitled 
"  The  English  Comedie  Humaine." 

Through  the  Looking-Glass,  illustrated  by 
M.  L.  Kirk  and  John  Tenniel. 

The  Cloister  and  the  Hearth.  "  Every- 
man's Library." 

Hypatia,  Illustrated  by  Lancelot  Speed ; 
and  Westward  Ho!  —  An  episode 
from  this  novel  selected  by  Edward 
Everett  Hale,  Jr. 

Kidnapped,  Treasure  Island.  "Every- 
man's Library." 


334 
Meredith, 

» 
Hardy, 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE 


The  Ordeal  of  Richard  Feverel,  The  Ego- 
ist, Diana  of  the  Crossways.  The 
Pocket  Edition. 

The  Return  of  the  Native.  Tauchnitz 
Edition. 


SHORT-STORY 


Dr.  John  Brown, 

Dickens, 
BuLWER  Lytton, 
Henry  Kingsley, 
Stevenson, 


Rab  and  his  Friends.  In  Stories  New 
and  Old,  edited  by  H.  W.  Mabie. 

The  Signal-Man.     In  Mughy  Junction. 

The  House  and  the  Brain.     In  Works. 

Our  Brown  Passenger.     In  Works. 

Will  o'  the  Mill.  In  Stories  New  and  Old, 
edited  by  H.  W.  Mabie. 


Macaulay, 
Carlyle, 


John  Stuart  Mill, 
Arnoij), 


Richard  Jefferies, 
Newman, 

RUSKIN, 


Stevenson, 


ESSAY 

Warren  Hastings,  Madame  D'Arblay. 

"Everyman's  Library." 
On  Heroes  and  Hero-Worship  and  the 

Heroic  in  History.     Edited  by  Han- 

naford  Bennett. 
On  Liberty.     Edition  of  1865. 
Culture  and  Anarchy,   Sweetness  and 

Light,  The  Function  of  Criticism. 

In  Selections  from  Arnold,  edited 

by  Lewis  E.  Gates. 
The  Life  of  the  Fields.     Edition  of  1900. 
Selections.     Edited  by  Lewis  E.  Gates. 
Sesame  and  Lilies,  The  Crown  of  Wild 

Olive.     "Everyman's  Library." 
Unto  This  Last,  and  The  Two  Paths,  in 

Winston's      "Illustrated      Handy 

Classics." 
Essays.    Selected  and  edited  by  W.  L. 

Phelps. 


THE  VICTORIAN  ERA 


335 


Darwin, 
Huxley, 


SCIENCE 

On  Earthworms.  In  The  Function  of 
Vegetable  Mould. 

Selections  from  his  Works.  In  Warner's 
"Library  of  the  World's  Best  Lit- 
erature." 


Newman, 

Christina  Rossetti, 
D.  G,  Rossetti, 

Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning, 


Arnold, 


Tennyson, 
Browning, 


POETRY 

The  Dream  of  Gerontius  and  Other  Poems. 
Oxford  Edition. 

The  Goblin-Market.     In  Poems. 

The  Blessed  Damozel  and  Other  Poems. 
Edited  by  Hannaford  Bennett. 

The  Cry  of  the  Children,  Portuguese 
Sonnets.  In  Selected  Poems.  Edi- 
tion of  1887. 

Selections.     Edited  by  G.  C.  Macaulay. 

Sohrab  and  Rustum.  Edited  by  J.  H. 
Castleman. 

Globe  Edition.  v 

Globe  Edition.    • 


HELPFUL  BOOKS  ON  THE  PERIOD 

Studies  in  Early  Victorian  Literature,  Frederic  Harrison.      (Edward  Arnold.) 

Victorian  Prose  Masters,  W.  C.  Brownell.     (Charles  Scribner's  Sons.) 

The  Victorian  Age  in  Literature,  G.  K.  Chesterton.     (Henry  Holt  &  Co.) 

Victorian  Poets,  Amy  Sharp.     (Methuen  &  Co.) 

The  Greater  Victorian  Poets,  Hugh  Walker.     (Swan,  Sonnenschein,  &  Co.) 

Victorian  Poets,  E.  C.  Stedman.     (J.  R.  Osgood  &  Co.) 

The  Romantic  Movement  in  English  Poetry,  Arthur  Symons.     (Archibald 

Constable  &  Co.,  Ltd.) 
Victorian  Age  of  English  Literature,  Mrs.  Oliphant.     (Percival  &  Co.) 
Victorian  Literature:   Sixty  Years  of  Books  and  Bookmen,  Clement  Shorter. 

(James  Bowden.) 
Our  Living  Poets,  H.  B.  Forman.     (Tinsley  Brothers.) 
See  also  Bibliography  on  The  Lyric,  in  Chapter  IX,  pages  385  and  386. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
THE  PRESENT-DAY,   1890- 

Criticism  of  current  literature  must  be  cautious.  —  In  this 
chapter  the  function  of  the  historian  must  be  abandoned  and 
the  r61e  of  the  journalist  assumed.  The  journalist  reports 
facts  of  his  own  day  and  interprets  them  as  best  he  can,  but  he 
is  not  wise  if  he  presumes  to  anticipate  the  verdicts  of  posterity. 
Experience  teaches  no  lesson  more  clearly  than  that  contem- 
porary opinion  of  literature  often  goes  astray. 

Quantity.  —  Of  making  books  there  surely  is  no  end  to-day. 
In  the  United  States  alone  during  the  year  191 2  there  were 
published  iO;903  books,  of  which  nearly  8,000  were  by  American 
authors  alone.  The  number  of  books  published  in  the  whole 
world  at  the  present  time  is  estimated  at  160,000  yearly.  If 
they  average  only  1,000  copies  each,  the  total  number  printed 
per  year  would  be  one  hundred  and  sixty  ijiillion,  —  almost 
without  end.  Of  1400  novels  published  in  the  United  States 
during  the  year  191 2  thirty  were  widely  enough  read  to  be  con- 
sidered successful  from  the  publisher's  point  of  view.  That 
has  been  said  to  be  about  a  stationary  number  for  a  period  of 
five  or  more  years.  The  New  York  Sun  has  estimated  that  out 
of  every  seven  hundred  and  fifty  manuscripts  of  novels  offered 
to  publishers,  only  one  put  into  type  becomes  what  is  known 
as  a  *'  seller."  Writing,  therefore,  and  publishing,  together 
make  up  both  a  speculative  and  precarious  business. 

Quality.  —  Since  1890  there  has  been  not  only  a  vast  quantity 
of  writing  of  books,  but  also  a  high  quality  in  the  writing  done 

336 


THE  PRESENT-DAY,    1890-  337 

by  a  large  number  of  authors.  The  '*  reading  public,"  while  it 
does  read  an  immense  amount  of  material  that  is  neither  worthy 
in  subject  matter  nor  well  handled  in  form,  is  nevertheless 
exacting  when  it  is  called  upon  to  pronounce  upon  the  qualities 
of  what  it  will  grant  to  be  good  literature,  —  or  even  "  good 
reading."  It  demands  inventiveness,  characterization,  proba- 
bility, condensation  (generally),  and  sympathy  to  be  shown  in 
what  it  reads.  So  far  as  it  is  able  to  understand  them,  the 
reading  public  demands  also  ethical  balance,  and  that  clear  and 
adequate  conveying  of  what  the  author  has  to  say  which  we  call 
style.  All  these  are  qualities  which  characterize  prose  fiction 
and  drama  more  than  any  other  kinds  of  literature ;  and  it  is 
the  novel,  the  short-story,  and  the  drama  which  are  the  popular 
kinds  of  literature  of  the  present  day. 

I.  The  Novel 

Schools  of  novelists.  —  When  a  novelist  says  that  he  is 
giving  to  his  readers  life,  he  means  (if  he  understands  himself) 
that  he  is  presenting  those  readers  with  a  copy  of  some  of  the 
patterns  into  which  life  is  woven.  Novelists  since  1890  in 
England  and  in  other  English-speaking  countries  may  be 
divided  into  three  classes :  "  naturalists,"  realists,  and  roman- 
ticists. The  names  may  not  be  very  exact  ones  to  suggest 
precisely  what  the  differences  between  the  various  tendencies 
among  the  novel  writers  really  are,  but  they  are  more  often 
used  than  any  other  names. 

Naturalists.  —  Naturalism  grew  up  first  in  France,  and  con- 
sisted of  a  careful  heaping  of  up  minute  details,  with  a  restrained 
manner  of  statement  in  imitation  of  the  most  sober  and  exact 
scientific  writing.  There  is  but  one  living  English  writer  who 
has  succeeded  in  this  manner  so  well  as  the  French  novelists, 


338  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

Mr.  George  Moore.  His  A  Mummer's  Wife  is  the  best  example 
from  this  school  of  writing.  It  is  not  very  pleasant,  to  say  the 
least.  The  curious  thing  about  "  naturalists,"  "  naturists," 
"  verists,"  and  the  like  in  literature,  is  that  they  almost  invari- 
ably turn  to  the  coarse  and  low  in  life  for  their  material.  When 
accused  of  it,  they  reply,  "  That  sort  of  life  is  a  part  of  human 
existence,  and  we  simply  wish  to  see  that  all  of  life  gets  put  into 
literature.  Hitherto  that  part  has  been  neglected."  But  it  has 
not  been  neglected  hitherto.  Fielding,  Dickens,  and  Thackeray 
dealt  with  it,  along  with  other  features  of  life.  A  book  must  be, 
and  is  at  last,  judged  by  its  effect  upon  its  readers.  The  effect 
of  the  handling  of  coarseness  and  vileness  in  human  life  by 
Fielding,  Dickens,  and  Thackeray  has  been  a  wholesome  one 
upon  their  readers.  But  the  effect  of  their  handling  by  the 
self-styled  "  naturalists  "  has  not  been  wholesome. 

Realists.  —  Then  there  are  the  **  realists,"  who  differ  from 
the  ''  naturalists  "  only  in  that  the  former  eagerly  look  for  or 
lead  us  to  mourn  for  the  absence  of  beauty  and  loveliness  in 
the  aspects  of  life  that  are  sordid  and  unlovely  and  base.  Among 
the  best  of  realists  are  George  Gissing,  with  his  Our  Friend, 
the  Charlatan,  and  Arnold  Bennett,  with  his  numerous  novels 
of  the  life  of  the  "  Five  Towns." 

Romanticists.  —  Lastly,  there  are  the  "  romanticists,"  the 
lovers  of  strange  things.  Some  of  them  at  the  present  day, 
like  Stevenson  a  little  earlier,  are  infatuated  with  the  strange- 
ness they  believe  they  see  in  familiar  things.  Others,  such  as 
Rudyard  Kipling  and  Joseph  Conrad,  have  selected  from' the 
actual  experiences  of  their  travels  most  of  the  material  which  fills 
their  books  with  fascinating  strangeness  for  the  Anglo-Saxon 
reader.  Incidentally  it  should  be  mentioned  that  though  most 
of  Mr.  Kipling's  great  tales  are  taken  from  Anglo-Indian  life, 
yet  he  lived  for  a  year  in  America,  and  his  Captains  CourageouSf 


Copyright  by  Underwood  &  Underwood,  N.  Y. 

Piccadilly  Circus,  London 


THE  PRESENT-DAY,    1890-  339 

a  story  of  an  American  boy's  adventures  off  the  Grand  Banks  of 
Newfoundland,  is  not  only  one  of  the  foremost  of  boy  stories, 
but  is  most  gripping  in  interest  to  adults  with  any  of  boyish 
spirit  left  in  their  souls.  To  Kipling,  also,  there  is  nothing  more 
full  of  romance  than  a  railway  engine  or  a  steamship.  Of 
Conrad's  novels.  Lord  Jim,  if  not  the  best,  is  at  least  the  most 
popular.  To  those  who  so  curiously  think  of  romanticism  as  a 
revival  of  medieval  things  and  interests  and  atmosphere,  and 
that  alone,  Kipling  and  Conrad  would  say,  "  Come,  see  the  ro- 
mance in  this  thing  right  here,  this  interest  of  yours,  this  at- 
mosphere of  just  now." 

Among  the  romanticists  who  still  strive  to  restore  the  at- 
mosphere of  a  by-gone  time,  there  is  Maurice  Hewlett,  with  his 
extremely  fascinating  Forest  Lovers.  But  H.  G.  Wells  in  modern 
politics  find  as  much  of  passion  and  glamour  as  in  politics  of 
far-gone  days ;  and  in  the  strange  wonders  of  modern  science, 
he  finds  still  more  of  glamour  and  romance.  May  Sinclair, 
W.  J.  Locke,  and  William  De  Morgan  are  other  writers  who 
appear  to  be  writing  the  best  books  among  the  romantic  fiction 
of  our  own  time.  De  Morgan's  last  novel.  When  Ghost  Meets 
Ghost,  with  its  862  pages,  seems  by  its  popularity  to  deny 
flatly  the  common  cry  that  we  can  endure  nothing  now  in  litera- 
ture unless  it  be  short. 

Contemporary  American  novelists.  —  Of  American  novelists 
it  is  especially  difiicult  to  speak  with  discrimination.  There 
have  been  and  are  no  such  successes  as  Cooper  and  Hawthorne 
to  attract  our  attention,  but  Frank  Norris,  George  Washington 
Cable,  James  Lane  Allen,  Thomas  Nelson  Page,  Margaret 
Deland,  Kate  Douglas  Wiggin,  Robert  Herrick,  Winston 
Churchill,  Owen  Wister,  Edith  Wharton,  William  Allen  White, 
and,  a  little  earlier,  F.  Marion  Crawford,  have  won  and  held 
a  large  and  enthusiastic  audience  of  thoughtful  readers.    Had 


340  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

Frank  Norris  lived  beyond  his  thirty-seven  years,  and  had  he 
continued  in  his  development  of  grasp  upon  the  breadth  of 
American  life  as  a  whole,  there  might  have  come  from  his  pen 
**  the  representative  American  novel."  There  are  a  few  novel- 
ists whose  books  have  sold  more  widely  than  those  of  any  of 
the  writers  here  named,  but  most  of  them  so  greatly  lack  uni- 
versality and  fineness  of  artistic  portrayal  in  their  work  that 
within  a  few  years  their  books  are  certain  to  be  pushed  off  the 
shelves  by  other  writers  of  equal  temporary  popularity. 


II.  The  Short-Storv 

Its  function.  —  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  best  workman- 
ship in  literature  to-day  is  being  done  upon  the  short-story. 
The  popularity  of  the  short-story  is  boundless.  This  is  not  due 
alone,  or  chiefly,  to  the  brevity  of  the  form,  but  to  a  wide- 
spread, if  not  fully  conscious,  awakened  interest  in  artistic  work 
that  is  fine  and  high.  Here,  in  the  short-story,  is  an  inexpen- 
sive, ready- to-hand,  quickly  assimilated  mode  of  gratifying 
this  interest ;  and  the  short-story  writers  of  note  are  doing  their 
best  to  meet  this  newly  awakened  demand.  A  bookman  in 
a  city  of  over  half  a  million  people  remarked  recently  that  not 
over  six  thousand  people  in  that  city  read  anything  but  the  news- 
paper. Perhaps  that  was  an  exaggeration ;  but  it  is  the  short- 
story  that,  more  than  any  other  form  of  literature,  is  leading 
the  "  tired  business  man  "  and  the  ^*  domesticity- wearied 
woman  "  and  the  rest  of  them  out  of  the  daily  newspaper  into 
the  fore-court,  at  least,  of  the  sanctuary  of  literature.  It  is  doing 
so  by  making  of  itself  a  kind  of  glorified  journalism.  In  fact 
the  majority  of  short-stories  find  their  first  publication  in  the 
daily  or  weekly  or  monthly  **  journals,"  —  the  best  of  them,  as 
a  rule,  in  the  monthly  magazines. 


THE  PRESENT-DAY,    1890-  341 

Rudyard  Kipling.  —  Kipling,  doubtless,  stands  at  the  head  of 
present-day  short-story  writers.  Not  that  he  has  a  larger 
group  of  readers,  but  among  all  short-story  writers  of  the  present 
time  his  imaginative  insight  and  reach  of  perception  place  him 
before  all  in  probability  of  permanent  place  in  literature.  His 
best  work  is  more  or  less  psychological.  The  Jungle- Book 
stories  reveal  his  thought  upon  the  organic  relationship  of  man 
with  nature  as  a  whole;  and  his  Brushwood  Boy,  They,  and 
The  Bridge- Builders f  all  psychological  stories,  though  less  wide 
in  their  appeal  than  the  stories  in  Plain  Tales  from  the  Hills  and 
in  Soldiers  Three,  are,  along  with  Without  Benefit  of  Clergy,  his 
strongest  claims  to  permanency  in  literature. 

Three  others.  —  Tales  of  Unrest,  by  Joseph  Conrad,  and 
Little  Novels  of  Italy,  by  Maurice  Hewlett,  and  Tales  of  Mean 
Streets,  by  Arthur  Morrison,  come  only  second  to  the  stories 
written  by  Kipling  in  truth  to  the  life  of  the  human  soul  and  in 
fineness  of  artistry  in  the  handling  of  that  truth. 

In  the  colonies.  —  South  Africa  has  furnished  at  least  one 
superior  personage  in  the  field  of  brief  fiction,  Mrs.  Olive 
Schreiner,  whose  little  allegorical  volume  of  Dreams  is  one  of  the 
choicest  things  in  modern  story-telling.  Canada,  also,  has  not 
been  barren.  Sir  Gilbert  Parker's  novels  and  short-stories  have 
their  advocates  for  first  place  in  interest.  And  the  satirical 
stories  by  Stephen  Leacock,  who,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  is 
professor  of  political  economy  in  a  great  university,  have  led 
to  their  author  being  called  "  The  Mark  Twain  of  Canada." 
One  of  Leacock's  latest  volumes,  Arcadian  Adventures  with 
the  Idle  Rich,  is  of  a  more  thoughtful  character  than  those  which 
have  preceded  it,  and  may  have  some  permanent  value. 

The  contemporary  short-story  in  the  United  States.  — 
Writers  of  short-stories  are  legion  among  the  writers  living  or 
but  recently  living  in  the  United  States.     Some  of  the  best  are 


342  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

Joel  Chandler  Harris,  Thomas  Nelson  Page,  James  Lane  Allen, 
Hamlin  Garland,  Mrs.  Mary  E.  Wilkins-Freeman,  and  Sidney 
Porter  (O.  Henry).  The  place  of  these  in  the  thought  and 
heart  of  readers  to-day  is  assured  and  would  seem  to  be  assured 
for  all  time.  It  is  more  than  possible,  indeed,  that  many  others 
will  reach  the  coveted  honor  of  permanent  position  in  the  pages 
of  literary  history.  The  short-story  has  not  been  better  or  more 
interestingly  written  in  any  other  country  in  the  world  than  it 
has  in  America. 

HI.  The  Drama 

Value  of  reading  plays.  —  The  late  years  of  the  nineteenth 
and  the  early  years  of  the  twentieth  centuries  have  seen  a 
remarkable  revival  of  interest  in  the  "  literary  drama,"  due 
largely  to  the  desire  of  cultivated  people  to  have  more  leisured 
acquaintance  with  the  mind  of  dramatic  writers  than  the  "  two 
hours'  trafl&c  of  the  stage  "  will  allow :  due  also  to  the  fact  that 
there  is  an  increasing  number  of  persons  who  believe  that  they 
secure  much  greater  enjoyment  from  the  seeing  of  a  play  in 
the  theater  if  they  are  already  made  familiar  with  the  subject 
matter  of  the  play  by  having  read  it ;  and  due,  further,  to*  the 
fact,  however  unexplainable,  that  there  exists  a  growing  number 
of  writers  who  have  the  dramatic  spirit,  but  who  lack  the 
power  of  technical  dramatic  construction  necessary  for  adapta- 
tion to  the  requirements  of  the  stage. 

Present-day  playwrights.  —  Of  dramas  not  well  adapted  to 
the  stage,  but  excellent  for  reading,  those  written  by  Stephen 
Phillips  have  attracted  most  attention.  They  are  richly  poetic 
in  conception  and  in  the  handling  of  details,  and  their  stories 
are  powerful  and  interesting.  If  one  were  to  give  a  brief  list 
of  present-day  English  dramatic  writers,  the  list  would  certainly 
include  Sir  Arthur  Pinero,  Henry  Arthur  Jones,  Bernard  Shaw, 


THE  PRESENT-DAY,    1890-  343 

John  Galsworthy,  Granville  Barker,  Alfred  Sutro,  Arnold  Ben- 
nett, and  J.  M.  Barrie.  All  of  these  have  been  greatly  influenced 
by  the  technique  of  Henrik  Ibsen,  the  Norwegian  dramatist, 
the  greatest  playwright  of  modern  times.  It  is  not  easy  to 
say  who  is  to  rank  highest  among  these  dramatists ;  but  none 
has  excelled  Sir  Arthur  Pinero  in  technique,  none  Mr.  Shaw  in 
cleverness  of  satire,  and  none  Mr.  Barrie  in  charm,  —  perhaps 
none  Mr.  Jones  in  naturalness  of  dialogue,  in  one  or  two  of  his 
plays.  Mr.  Barker  has  his  strong  advocates  who  place  him  in 
the  front  rank  of  dramatists. 

The  Irish  playwrights.  —  A  few  young  enthusiasts  in  Ireland 
during  the  later  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  became  enam- 
ored of  the  delicate  methods  but  rather  moody  tone  of  some 
French  writers  of  years  a  little  earlier,  and  they  practiced  those 
methods  upon  the  traditions  of  Celtic  life.  Out  of  this  and  other 
movements  arose  what  has  been  called  the  "  Celtic  Renaissance." 
Among  the  chief  writers  of  this  revival  of  Irish  literature  were 
W.  B .  Yeats,  Lady  Gregory,  and  John  Millington  Synge.  St.  John 
G.  Ervine  stands  only  second  to  them  in  quality  of  work. 

The  best  writing  of  these  has  been  in  the  field  of  drama. 
The  brief  plays  by  Lady  Gregory  are  unfailing  in  their  charm 
and  in  their  accuracy  to  the  life  of  the  contemporary  Irish 
peasants.  Few  creations  excel  in  quiet  humor  and  adroit  keen- 
ness of  gentle  satire  The  Pot  of  Broth  by  W.  B.  Yeats,  and 
few  national  allegories  are  superior  to  his  Cathleen  ni  Houli- 
han. But  it  is  the  dramas  of  J.  M.  Synge  of  which  one  may 
speak  with  positiveness.  His  character  study  in  The  Playboy 
of  the  Western  World  is  too  well-known  to  need  more  than  re- 
mark, and  yet  there  are  at  least  three  others  of  his  productions 
which  are  of  much  more  certain  value  than  it,  namely.  The 
Well  of  the  Saints,  Riders  to  the  Sea,  and  Deirdre  of  the  Sorrows. 
The  first  is  one  of  the  greatest  masterpieces  in  the  gently  ironic 


344  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

treatment  of  the  futility  of  fulfilled  desire  in  the  life  of  man; 
the  second  passes  before  our  vision  the  simplest  and  yet  most 
poignant  of  human  sorrows ;  and  the  third  ranks  even  now 
among  the  leading  modern  triumphs  in  the  use  of  the  old  my- 
thology. 

Drama  in  America.  —  America's  pioneer  in  worth-while 
drama  was  Bronson  Howard,  who  was  born  in  Detroit  in  1842 
and  was  buried  there  in  1908.  His  work  was  done  in  large 
measure  before  the  period  of  the  present  day,  though  he  was 
writing  dramas  as  late  as  1906.  Almost  the  only  things  that 
could  get  themselves  produced  upon  the  American  stage  before 
Howard  were  violent  adaptations  of  French  plays.  Howard 
ended  all  that. 

He  was  a  pioneer  in  three  ways.  First,  he  was  the  first  pro- 
fessional dramatist  in  America  to  give  his  life  exclusively  to 
the  writing  of  plays.  Second,  he  set  upon  the  stage,  for  the  first 
time  successfully,  aspects  of  American  life.  The  Henrietta^ 
(now  playing  as  The  New  Henrietta),  Saratoga,  and  Shenandoah 
are  ample  proof  of  his  success.  What  is  sometimes  thought  to 
be  the  special  American  brand  of  proof  is  that  the  production 
of  Shenandoah  alone  made  Mr.  Charles  Frohman  the  foremost 
of  American  producing  managers,  paid  Howard  over  one  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars  in  one  year,  and  netted  him  a  total  of 
not  less  than  a  quarter  of  a  million  dollars  in  royalties. 
Howard  was  a  pioneer,  in  the  third  place,  in  a  way  less  to  be 
commended,  in  that  he  set  the  fashion  in  America  for  farce- 
comedy  with  music,  by  his  play  entitled  Fun  in  a  Green- Room. 

Between  1864  and  1906  Bronson  Howard  produced  but 
nineteen  plays,  and  two  of  these  (the  only  two  unsuccessful 
ones)  were  in  collaboration  with  other  writers.  He  was  a  model 
workman.  He  said  that  he  seldom  put  pen  to  paper  for  the 
first  three  months  of  preparing  a  play,  and  that  it  took,  generally, 


THE  PRESENT-DAY,    1890-  345 

two  years  to  produce  one  play,  —  a  slight  commentary  upon 
those  craftsmen  who  think  it  can  be  done  in  three  weeks  or 
less.  Furthermore,  he  never  put  a  word  of  dialogue  into  the 
mouths  of  his  characters  until,  upon  a  series  of  cards  with  squares, 
one  card  for  each  scene,  he  had  worked  his  characters  about 
until  every  one  of  them  knew  his  place,  —  another  commentary. 
American  business  is  the  central  interest  in  nearly  all  of  Howard's 
plays. 

Clyde  Fitch  produced  fifty  and  more  plays,  most  of  them 
dealing  with  family  life  as  affected  by  city  life.  His  plays  most 
worthy  of  mention  are  The  Truth,  The  Climbers,  Captain  Jinks 
of  the  Horse  Marines,  The  Stubbornness  of  Geraldine,  The  Girl 
with  the  Green  Eyes,  The  Moth  and  the  Flame,  Her  Own  Way, 
The  Cowboy  and  the  Lady,  The  City,  Nathan  Hale,  Barbara 
Frietchie,  and  Beau  Brummel.  The  Climbers  is  one  of  the  fore- 
most American  dramas.  Fitch's  work  is  nearly  all  melo- 
dramatic, —  but  so  was  that  of  Shakespeare.  Beau  Brummel 
is  a  play  which  will  long  be  read,  even  should  it  never  be 
acted  again.  It  has  a  great  deal  of  literary  flavor  and  literary 
power. 

A  third  American  dramatist  of  excellent  standing  (as  a 
writer  of  poetic  dramas  rather  than  stage  plays,  however)  is 
Mrs.  Olive  Dargan.  Lords  and  Lovers  is  her  best  drama.  Her 
work  is  chiefly  in  the  line  of  historical  plays.  She  is  very  am- 
bitious, dealing  with  ancient,  medieval,  and  modern  history, 
with  history  in  Greece,  in  the  Mediterranean  islands,  in  Russia, 
in  England,  and  in  Mexico.  Her  plays  are  highly  poetic,  with 
some  very  beautiful  passages  within  them.  Her  models  are, 
quite  evidently,  the  Shakespeareans.  There  is  but  little 
humor  in  her,  but  an  occasional  glint  of  it  attracts  the  atten- 
tion of  the  reader,  as  when  in  The  Shepherd,  Adrian  exclaims,  "  I 
wonder    if    God   understands  women!"  —  and    the    Princess 


346  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

Travinski  replies:  ''Oh,  some  of  them.    The  rest  He  made  to 
puzzle  over  when  eternity  hangs  on  His  hands." 
It  can  hardly  be  said  of  these  three  American  dramatists 

that  they 

Tease  us  out  of  thought 
As  doth  eternity, 

but  they  stimulate  us  to  thought ;  and  they  are  very  wholesome. 
They  never  urge  upon  us  "To  remember  to  forget  that  there 
are  any  such  things  as  sunshine  and  music  in  the  world." 

William  Gillette,  Charles  Klein,  Augustus  Thomas,  William 
Vaughan  Moody,  Percy  Mackaye,  Eugene  Walter,  Edward 
Sheldon,  Charles  Kenyon,  George  Ade,  are  familiar  names  to 
America  theater-goers  and  readers  of  the  drama,  most  of  them 
still  earnestly  working  to  place  the  American  theater  and  the 
American  drama  upon  a  high  level  as  teachers  and  as  lighteners 
of  the  burdens  of  our  life. 

IV.  Poetry 

To  speak  with  emphasis  of  contemporary  poetry  is  always  a 
precarious  thing  to  do.  "  For  the  creation  of  a  master- work  of 
literature  two  powers  must  concur,  the  power  of  the  man  and 
the  power  of  the  moment,"  said  Matthew  Arnold  in  Essays 
in  Criticism.  Upon  neither  the  man  nor  the  moment  of  our 
own  day  in  literature  are  we  so  competent  to  pass  unimpeach- 
able judgment,  favorable  or  otherwise,  as  upon  men  and 
moments  past,  just  as  we  are  not  competent  to  pass  un- 
prejudiced judgment  upon  many  things  near  to  us,  —  our 
relatives,  for  example.  It  might  seem  that  the  Laureate- 
ship  would  determine  to  some  degree  the  relative  standing  of  at 
least  one  poet  at'any  given  time.  But  when  we  look  at  the  list 
of  the  laureates  during  the  nineteenth  century,  —  Henry  James 
Pye,  Sou  they,  Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  Alfred  Austin,  Robert 


THE  PRESENT-DAY,    189O-  347 

Bridges,  —  it  is  at  once  clear  that  the  poet  laureate  is  not  always 
the  foremost  English  poet.  Henry  James  Pye  is  unknown  to- 
day, except  to  the  most  erudite  of  students.  Alfred  Austin 
will  be  read  by  a  few  leisured  people  for  his  Lucifer,  a  fairly 
good  drama.  Robert  Bridges,  the  present  laureate,  will  never 
displease  any  one,  however  few  he  may  please. 

There  are  several  living  English  poets  whose  names  may  sur- 
vive ;  a  few  of  them  are  sure  to  do  so.  Some  of  those  who  have 
written  poetry  will  survive  for  other  reasons  than  for  the  pro- 
duction of  poetry,  —  Thomas  Hardy,  the  novelist,  for  example. 
A  few  of  the  lyrics  of  Gerald  Gould  are  likely  to  pass  success- 
fully through  the  ordeal  of  time.  Some  of  the  one-act  dramatic 
pieces  of  Wilfrid  Gibson  in  the  volume  called  Daily  Bread  are 
original  in  story  and  touching  for  their  pathetic  feeling.  The 
Collected  Poems  of  Rupert  Brooke,  who  died  in  service  during  the 
Dardanelles  campaign  in  191 5,  have  attracted  much  attention. 
Alfred  Noyes  has  taken  high  place  in  opinion  and  in  affection  for 
his  Drake  and  his  Tales  of  the  Mermaid  Inn.  John  Masefield 
has  attempted  drama,  but  not  very  successfully.  He  is,  though, 
achieving  triumphs  at  the  present  time  in  his  long  narratives  in 
verse.  His  The  Widow  in  the  Bye  Street,  The  Everlasting  Mercy, 
and,  more  especially,  The  Dauber  and  Daffodil  Fields,  are  versi- 
fied stories,  each  of  which  one  is  likely  to  read  with  breathless 
interest  at  a  single  sitting,  —  a  most  unusual  thing  to  do  with 
a  long  narrative  poem.  The  Dauber  has  some  of  the  very 
best  of  descriptions  of  the  sea,  and  Dafodil  Fields  has  been  com- 
pared favorably  with  another  poem  of  similar  subject  matter, 
Enoch  Arden.  William  Watson  is  also  a  popular  poet,  his  poem 
upon  Wordsworth^ s  Grave  being  of  special  merit. 

But  it  is  Rudyard  Kipling  who  stands  at  the  head  of  the  list 
of  English  living  poets  in  the  opinion  of  most  of  those  who  are 
competent  to  judge.    His  writings  might  be  said  to  come  under 


348  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

such  a  heading  as  that  of  ''Anglo-Indian  Literature,"  or  the 
literature  of  British  India,  so  far  as  a  large  number  of  his  poems 
are  concerned.  His  Departmental  Ditties  are  descriptive  of  the 
rather  ridiculous  side  of  East-Indian  life,  and  his  Barrack- 
room  Ballads  also  deal  with  life  in  India  more  than  elsewhere. 
The  Barrack-room  Ballads  are  his  most  musical  verse.  Kipling 
is  lauded  for  his  patriotism,  but  occasionally  such  epithets  as 
"  sentimental  athleticism  "  and  as  "  bad  taste  "  appear  to  fit 
his  mood  more  than  any  other  description  does.  Much  of 
his  verse  is  not  very  original  in  its  measures.  It  is  modeled 
after  Swinburne.  Yet  in  the  greater  part  of  his  poetry  he  gave 
his  readers  new  material  to  think  of  and  to  enjoy.  At  least  A 
Song  of  the  English  and  The  Recessional  are  poetic  in  high  de- 
gree, and  not  local,  but  "  imperial."  These  belong  to  English 
literature  without  question  and  without  qualification. 

Anglo-India.  —  In  the  literature  of  Anglo-India  should  be 
considered  the  poem  by  Sir  Edwin  Arnold  entitled  The  Light 
of  Asia  (1888).  Its  author  attempted  with  his  fine  descriptive 
powers  and  faculty  for  beautiful  versification  to  enlist  the  sym- 
pathy of  Europeans  with  the  teachings  of  Buddha.  The  poem 
became  very  popular,  though  it  did  not  have  quite  the  full 
effect  he  intended.  His  The  Light  of  the  World  (1891)  retells 
in  verse  of  unusually  fine  melody  the  familiar  stories  of  the  life 
of  Jesus,  giving  to  them  an  Oriental  air  which  the  reader  often 
fails  to  secure  from  the  Biblical  translations.  If  Kipling  is  a 
first-rate  Anglo-Indian  poet,  and  Sir  Edwin  Arnold  not  less 
than  a  second-rate  one.  Sir  Alfred  Lyall  is  at  the  very 
least  a  third-rate  one.  He  reveals  that  he  knew  a  great  deal  of 
the  Anglo-Indian,  or  Englishman  in  India,  and  of  the  native, 
too,  in  a  volume  of  poems  published  in  1889,  entitled  Verses 
Written  in  India.  Mrs.  F.  A.  Steele's  work  as  a  novelist  is 
worthy  of  mention,  especially  in  the  novel  entitled  The  Potter^ s 


THE  PRESENT-DAY,    1890-  349 

Thumb.  Mr.  Edward  F.  Oaten,  in  a  volume  upon  Anglo- 
Indian  Literature^  names  not  less  than  one  hundred  and  forty- 
one  writers  of  Anglo-India,  but  he  has  difficulty  in  persuading 
the  reader  that  many  of  them  are  of  importance.  Perhaps  a 
native  Bengalese  should  be  mentioned,  Rabindranath  Tagore, 
for  he  has  translated  into  excellent  English  many  of  his  own 
poems.  His  dramatic  works  appear  much  superior  to  his  lyrics. 
The  King  of  the  Dark  Chamber  is  a  drama  notable  for  beautiful 
picturesqueness,  subtle  symbolism,  and  high  ethical  worth. 

Canada.  —  In  Canada  two  writers  of  poetry  have  displayed 
the  singing  quality  in  thoughtful  verse,  Charles  G.  D.  Roberts 
and  Bliss  Carman.  The  latter's  Low  Tide  in  Grand  Pre,  1893, 
and  other  volumes  have  given  their  author  well-deserved  fame 
as  one  whose  feeling  for  the  life  of  the  lovely  world  which  is 
man's  home  is  a  feeling  akin  to  that  of  nature's  own  moods. 

Australia.  —  Since  we  are  upon  the  field  of  colonial  literature, 
Australia  may  here  be  mentioned.  (We  have  already  spoken 
of  a  South  African  writer  (see  page  341).)  Australia  has  not 
been  fertile  in  literature  of  much  value.  If  being  an  author's 
land  of  birth  could  count  as  a  claim  upon  the  author,  Australia 
could  claim  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward,  but  her  writings  have  not 
dealt  with  the  life  of  Australia;  they  have  been  confined  to 
England's  life.  Henry  Kingsley  wrote  delightfully  of  Australian 
life,  but  was  neither  native  born  nor  long  in  residence  there. 
That  colony  has  good  claim  to  but  three  prominent  men  of 
letters :  Adam  Lindsay  Gordon,  Henry  Clarence  Kendall,  and 
Marcus  Clarke.  The  first  two  were  local  poets  of  excellence, 
the  third  a  novelist  of  considerable  note.  All  three,  however, 
did  their  work  during  the  Victorian  era. 

The  United  States.  —  Contemporary  poetry  in  the  United 
States  has  reflected  the  eagerness  of  its  writers  to  experience 
life  in  full  measure  and  to  understand  it  with  sympathy.     The 


350  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

life  they  have  desired  to  feel  and  know  so  well  has  been  both 
that  of  humankind  and  of  the  physical  nature  which  has  been 
background  and  inspiration  for  the  life  of  man.  The  moods 
and  thoughts  of  men  and  women,  the  sorrows  and  delights  of 
childhood,  and  the  beauty  and  vitality  of  landscape  have 
found  expression  in  the  lyrical  verse  of  Richard  Watson 
Gilder,  George  Edward  Woodberry,  Edwin  Markham,  James 
Whitcomb  Riley,  Paul  Laurence  Dunbar,  Eugene  Field,  and 
Cale  Young  Rice.  All  of  these  and  many  Others  have  en- 
deavored to  express  the  thought,  feeling,  and  emotion  which 
life  has  aroused  within  them,  and  have  added  something  of 
worth  to  the  pages  of  that  which  gives  so  much  abiding  con- 
solation and  inspiration  to  the  human  mind,  —  literature. 

QUESTIONS  AND  TOPICS  FOR  DISCUSSION 

1.  What  can  you  say  of  the  number  of  books  being  published  to-day? 
What  of  their  quality? 

2.  What  are  to-day  the  three  most  popular  types  of  literature?    Which 
one  appeals  to  you  most,  and  why? 

3.  Novelists  of  to-day  may  be  divided  into  what  classes?    Upon  what 
principle  is  the  classification  based? 

4.  What  seems  to  you  to  be  the  main  differences  between  the  novels 
of  our  own  time  and  those  of  three  quarters  of  a  century  ago  ? 

5.  Why  is  the  short-story  so  very  popular  now  ?     Give  three  reasons. 

6.  Name  a  dozen  magazines  which  include  fiction  in  their  pages,  and 
divide  them  into  groups  according  to  the  quality  of  their  short-stories. 

7.  Who  are  the  most  prominent  present-day  playwrights?     Give  the 
title  of  a  play  by  each. 

8.  Give  the  title  and  author  of  each  of  the  one-act  plays  which  you  have 
read. 

9.  Compare  the  short-story,  the  one-act  play,  and  the  brief  story-telling 
poem,  as  effective  media  for  narrative. 

10.   Of  living  poets,  who  is  your  favorite?    Why?    What  of  his  poetry 
can  you  repeat  from  memory? 


THE  PRESENT-DAY,    1890- 


351 


II.  In  so  far  as  you  are  familiar  with  the  present-day  literature  of  Eng- 
land and  America,  that  produced  in  which  of  the  two  countries  appeals  to  you 
the  more  deeply ?    Why? 

READING  LIST  FOR  THE  PERIOD  OF  THE  PRESENT  DAY 

(This  list  includes  some  titles  from  American  as  well  as  English  writers.) 


Arnold  Bennett, 
RuDYARD  Kipling, 
William  de  Morgan, 
W.  J.  Locke, 
Joseph  Conrad, 
Winston  Churchill, 
Owen  Wister, 
Margaret  Deland, 


THE  NOVEL 

The  Old  Wives'  Tale. 
Captains  Courageous. 
Alice-for-Short. 
Septimus. 
Lord  Jim. 
The  Crisis. 
The  Virginian. 
The  Iron  Woman. 


RuDYARD  Kipling, 
Maurice  Hewlett, 
Thomas  Hardy, 
Olive  Schreiner, 
O.  Henry, 

Hamlin  Garland, 
James  Lane  Allen, 


THE  SHORT-STORY 

.00/,  The  Brushwood  Boy. 

The  Madonna  of  the  Peach-Tree. 

The  Three  Strangers. 

Dreams. 

A  Municipal  Report. 

The  Ransom  of  Red  Chief. 

Main-Travelled  Roads. 

King  Solomon  of  Kentucky. 


John  Galsworthy, 
Arnold  Bennett, 
J.  M.  Barrie, 
Granville  Barker, 
W.  B.  Yeats, 
J.  M.  Synge, 
St.  John  Hankin, 
Sir  Arthur  Pinero, 


THE  DRAMA 

The  Pigeon. 

Milestones. 

Rosalind. 

Prunella. 

The  Pot  of  Broth. 

The  Well  of  the  Saints. 

The  Cassilis  Engagement, 

Letty. 


352 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE 


William  Vaughan  Moody, 
Israel  Zangwill, 
Clyde  Fitch, 


Alfred  Noyes, 
John  Masefield, 
RuDYARD  Kipling, 
Stephen  Phillips, 
James  Whitcomb  Riley, 
Paul  Laurence  Dunbar, 


The  Great  Divide. 
The  Melting  Pot. 
Nathan  Hole. 

POETRY 

Tales  of  the  Mermaid  Tavern. 
The  Dauber. 
Departmental  Ditties. 
Marpessa. 

An  Old  Sweetheart  of  Mine. 
Ere  Sleep  Comes  Down  to  Soothe  the  Weary 
Eyes. 

THE  ESSAY 

A.  C.  Benson,  Habits. 

•H.  G.  Wells,  The  Discovery  of  the  Future. 

James  Bryce,  *        National  Characteristics  as  Moulding  Public 

Opinion. 
E.  V.  Lucas,  Concerning  Breakfast. 

Samuel  McChord  Crothers,   The  Gentle  Reader. 

HELPFUL  BOOKS  ON  THE  PERIOD 

English  Literature,  i88o-igo5,  J.  M.  Kennedy,     (Stephen  Swift  &  Co.) 
Treasury  of  Canadian  Verse,  Theodore  H.  Rand.     (William  Briggs.) 
Anglo-Indian  Literature,  Edward  F.  Oaten.     (Kegan  Paul,  Trench,  Triibner, 

&  Co.,  Ltd.) 
The  Drama  To-Day,  Charlton  Andrews.     (J.  B.  Lippincott  Company.) 
The  Development  of  Australian  Liter ature^  Turner  &  Sutherland.     (Long- 
mans, Green,  &  Co.) 
Irish  Plays  and  Playwrights,  C.  Weygandt.     (Houghton  MifBin  Company.) 
The  Great  English  Short-story  Writers,  W.  J.  &  C.  W.  Dawson.     (Harper 

and  Brothers.) 
American  Writers  of  To-day,  Henry  C.  Vedder.     (Silver,  Burdett,  &  Co.) 
Some  American  Story-Tellers,  F.  T.  Cooper.     (Henry  Holt  &  Co.) 
Some  English  Story-Tellers,  F.  T.  Cooper.     (Henry  Holt  &  Co.) 
See  also  Bibliography  on  The  Short-story,  in  Chapter  IX,  pages  392  and 
393- 


CHAPTER  IX 
THE   CHIEF  TYPES  OF  LITERATURE 

Their  names.  —  The  chief  types  of  literature  are  the  Epic, 
the  Drama,  the  Essay,  the  Novel,  the  Lyric,  and  the  Short- 
story.  History,  biography,  philosophy,  science,  oratory  are 
also  immensely  important.  They  are  so  important  that  litera- 
ture would  be  worthless  if  they  did  not  exist,  for  literature  is 
based  upon  them,  and  yet  very  few  histories,  biographies, 
systems  of  philosophy,  scientific  treatises,  or  orations  do  not 
*'  have  their  day  and  cease  to  be,"  while  permanency  is  an  es- 
sential quality  of  what  we  call  literature. 

Their  historical  order.  —  Each  of  these  types  of  literature 
was  a  dominant  type  at  some  one  time  in  the  history  of  English 
literature,  though  at  the  present  time  Drama,  Novel,  and  Short- 
story  rival  each  other  in  popularity,  with  the  Short-story,  per- 
haps, in  the  lead.  The  following  table  will  be  convenient  in 
helping  one  to  remember  the  periods  during  which  the  types 
became  very  important.  It  should  be  remembered,  however, 
that  in  the  case  of  the  Epic  the  period  in  which  it  came  to  be 
very  important  did  not  give  the  greatest  English  epic.  The 
greatest  English  epic  is  Milton's  Paradise  Lost,  and  that  was 
written  during  the  seventeenth  century.  Also  it  should  be 
remembered  that  the  Essay  was  not  most  important  at  the  time 
when  it  became  "  very  important."  The  essay  was  most  im- 
portant during  the  nineteenth  century  in  the  hands  of  Macaulay, 
Carlyle,  Ruskin,  and  others,  but  it  first  came  to  be  very  im- 
portant in  the  eighteenth  century.  So  that  the  following  table 
2A  353 


354  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

is  not  intended  to  show  when  the  types,  in  each  case,  were  of 
greatest  importance,  but  merely  when  they  rose  to  be  the  tem- 
porarily dominant  type  and  at  the  same  time  were  very  im- 
portant. 

The  Epic,  Anglo-Saxon  and  Middle  English  Periods. 

The  Drama,  Renaissance  Period. 

The  Essay,  Eighteenth  Century  (first  half). 

The  Novel,  Eighteenth  Century  (second  half)  and 

Early  Nineteenth  Century. 

The  Lyric,  Victorian  Era. 

The  Short-story,  The  Present  Day. 

The  logical  time  to  begin  the  study  of  each  of  the  types  would 
be  at  the  close  of  the  study  of  the  historical  development  of  the 
literature  during  each  of  these  periods,  as  indicated  above, 
though  it  is  not  likely  always  to  be  convenient  to  begin  at  such 
points. 

I.  The  Study  of  the  Epic 

Kinds  of  epic.  —  The  one  distinctive  mark  of  the  epic  upon 
which  all  agree  is  its  narrative  character.  All  poems  whose  pur- 
pose is  primarily  to  tell  a  story  are  called  epical.  In  many  lyrics 
there  is  story,  but  the  primary  purpose  of  the  lyric  is  not  to 
tell  the  story.  (See  the  section  on  The  Lyric,  pages  379-386.) 
All  dramas  tell  stories,  too,  but  the  purpose  of  drama  is  prima- 
rily to  show  the  reader  characters  in  a  certain  situation.  (See 
the  section  on  The  Drama,  pages  359-366.) 

The  truest  form  of  epic  is  sometimes  called  the  *'  Grand  " 
epic,  sometimes  the  "  authentic  "  as  opposed  to  the  *'  literary  " 
epic.  Sometimes  writers  speak  of  the  *'  authentic  "  epic  as 
something  that  has  "  grown,"  while  the  "  literary  "  epic  is 
spoken  of  as  having  been  "  made."  The  grand  epic  is  always  a 
long  poem.    The  grand  epic  has  grown  directly  from  the  folk- 


THE   CHIEF   TYPES  OF  LITERATURE  355 

stories  of  the  early  national  life  of  a  people.  The  Iliad  of  Homer 
is  a  complete  national  epic  of  the  country  of  Greece,  consisting 
of  a  series  of  stories  which  were  passed  about  by  word  of  mouth 
from  one  group  of  people  to  another  until  Homer,  or  "the 
weaver,"  wove  the  songs  together  into  one  fabric.  The  Teu- 
tonic Nihelungenlied  is  also  a  national  epic,  but  less  poetically 
perfect  than  the  Iliad.  In  the  tales  about  King  Arthur  in 
Britain  there  existed  the  material  for  another  complete  national 
epic,  but  it  has  never  been  written. 

The  Mneid  of  Virgil  and  the  Paradise  Lost  of  Milton  are 
excellent  examples  of  grand  epics,  but  they  can  hardly  be  called 
'*  authentic,"  because  they  were  deliberately  invented  or  made 
by  writers  in  all  their  details  and  not  composed  of  material 
furnished  the  writers  by  the  singers  of  folk-stories.  But  while 
they  are  "  literary  "  epics,  they  also  are  long  poems.  "  The 
epic  poet  is  like  a  painter  who  has  to  fill  a  large  stretch  of  canvas, 
or  he  is  like  a  sculptor  who  has  to  mold  a  colossal  statue,  or  he 
is  like  a  musician  who  has  to  fill  a  wide  space  with  sounds." 
Therefore  he  always  works  upon  a  large  scale. 

Characteristics.  —  Underlying  every  great  epic  poem  there 
is  a  struggle,  amounting  to  a  war  between  right  and  wrong. 
This  is  obvious  in  the  grand  epics  we  have  already  mentioned. 
Even  in  Tennyson's  Idylls  of  the  King,  which  consists  of 
stories  and  scenes  from  the  unwritten  Arthurian  epic,  there 
is  the  war  between  right  and  wrong,  disguised  in  the  form  of 
allegory.    Tennyson  himself  in  the  epilogue  describes  his  work 

as  an 

old  imperfect  tale 
New-old,  and  shadowing  Sense  at  war  with  Soul. 

The  great  epic,  whether  "  authentic  "  like  the  Iliad  and  the 
Nihelungenlied,  or  "  literary  "  like  the  Mneid  and  the  Paradise 
Lost,  has  a  noble  theme.    Its  theme  is  based  upon  the  legends 


356 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE 


of  mythology  and  is  always  more  or  less  religious  in  its  nature. 
Its  characters  are  heroic.  They  are  gods,  demi-gods,  and 
heroes.  The  construction  of  the  grand  epic  is  simple,  consisting 
of  a  series  of  stories  strung  like  pearls  upon  the  strand  of  the 
life  of  some  great  chief  among  the  heroic  personalities  in  the 
poem.  Episodes,  or  stories  that  can  be  detached  from  the 
context  and  yet  be  complete  stories,  abound.  The  action  is 
leisurely,  though  at  times  very  vivid  and  tense. 

The  following  classification  of  epic  poems  will  indicate  the 
chief  kinds  of  epics  besides  the  grand  epic.  It  is  only  the 
older  ballads  that  approach  the  grand  or  "  authentic  "  epic  in 
spontaneity. 


GREAT  EPICS 

The  Iliad, 

Homer.     (Pope's  Translation.) 

The  Odyssey, 

Homer.     (Bryant's  Translation.) 

The  Mneid, 

Virgil.     (Dryden's  Translation.) 

Beowulf, 

(Unknown.)                                 ^ 

The  Divine  Comedy^ 

Dante.     (Longfellow's  Translation.) 

Paradise  Lost, 

MUton. 

Paradise  Regained, 

Milton. 

MOCK  EPIC 

The  Rape  of  the  Lock, 

Pope. 

TALES 

The  Canterbury  Tales, 

Chaucer. 

Enoch  Arden, 

Tennyson. 

Tales  of  the  Wayside  Inn, 

Longfellow. 

Tales  of  the  Mermaid  Tavern, 

Noyes. 

BALLADS 

Robin  Hood  Ballads, 

(Unknown.) 

Chevy  Chase, 

(Unknown.) 

Sir  Patrick  Spens, 

(Unknown.) 

THE   CHIEF 

TYPES   OF  LITERATURE                  357 

The  Ancient  Mariner, 

Coleridge. 

The  King^s  Tragedy, 

Rossetti. 

The  Defence  of  Lucknow, 

Tennyson. 

ROMANCES 

The  Lady  of  the  Lake, 

Scott. 

The  Idylls  of  the  King, 

Tennyson. 

Hiawatha, 

Longfellow. 

Daffodil  Fields, 

Masefield. 

The  Song  of  Roland, 

(An  Epic  Legend.     Old  French — author 

unknown.)      (Isabel  Butler's  Transla- 

tion.) 

SOME  BRIEF  STORY-TELLING  POEMS 


Bishop  Hatto  and  his  Mouse  Tower, 

Lady  Clare, 

St.  George  and  the  Dragon  (Old  Ballad), 

The  Glove  and  the  Lions, 

The  Pied  Piper  of  Hamelin, 

The  Goblin  Market, 

The  Owl  and  the  Pussy-Catj 

Lord  Ullin's  Daughter, 

King  Canute, 

Hart-Leap  Well, 

Sohrab  and  Rustum, 

The  Leak  in  the  Dike, 

Paul  Revere's  Ride, 

The  Enchanted  Shirt, 

The  Wonderful  "One-Hoss  Shay," 

King  Solomon  and  the  Bees, 

Brier-Rosej 

The  White-footed  Deer, 

The  Brown  Dwarf  of  Riigen, 

Dara, 

The  Shoes  of  Happiness, 

Skipper  Ireson's  Ride, 


Robert  Southey. 
Alfred  Tennyson. 
(Unknown) . 
Leigh  Hunt. 
Robert  Browning. 
•Christina  Rossetti. 
Edward  Lear. 
Thomas  Campbell. 
W.  M.  Thackeray. 
William  Wordsworth. 
Matthew  Arnold. 
Phoebe  Cary. 
H.  W.  Longfellow. 
John  Hay. 
O.  W.  Holmes. 
J.  G.  Saxe. 
H.  H.  Boyesen. 
W.  C.  Bryant. 
J.  G.  Whittier, 
J.  R.  Lowell. 
Edwin  Markham. 
J.  G.  Whittier. 


358  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

QUESTIONS 

Did  the  epic  you  are  now  reading  grow  from  folk-stories  or  was  it  made 
at  once  ? 

What  makes  it  an  epic  ? 

Does  the  story  begin  at  the  beginning  of  the  related  events,  or  where  in 
the  course  of  events? 

How  much  time  is  occupied  by  the  action,  and  what  is  the  date  ? 

Do  the  episodes  belong  to  the  story?    Precisely  what  is  an  "episode" ? 

How  much  of  the  supernatural  is  there  in  the  story?  How  does  that  ele- 
ment affect  the  story  in  its  progress? 

Is  a  moral  to  be  found  in  this  epic?    What  is  the  moral,  if  there  is  one? 

If  the  poem  is  not  a  "  grand  "  epic,  what  epic  quality  does  it  possess? 

How  do  you  classify  the  poem  among  the  minor  forms  of  epic,  if  it  is  not 
a  "grand*' epic? 

Does  it  interest  you?     Why? 

How  can  you  determine  the  kind  of  man  the  author  is? 

Why  is  there  no  great  American  epic  ? 

Where  would  you  go  to  find  an  epic  of  the  last  decade  ? 

Find  recently  written  examples  of  mock-epic,  romance,  ballad,  or  tale. 

Are  they  good?     In  what  way? 

Take  the  last  story-poem  you  have  read,  and  answer  these  questions 
concerning  it :  What  has  the  author  done?  How  has  he  done  it?  Was  it 
worth  while  doing  ? 

BOOKS  THAT  WILL  AID  IN  THE  STUDY  OF  THE  EPIC 

The  Book  of  the  Epic,  H.  A.  Guerber.     (J.  B.  Lippincott  Company.) 

National  Epics,  Kate  N.  Raab.     (A.  C.  McClurg  &  Co.) 

The  Epic,  Lascelles  Abercrombie.     (Martin  Stecker.) 

The  Ballad,  Helen  M.  Cohen.     (Columbia  University  Press.) 

The  Popular  Ballad,  Francis  B.  Gummere.     (Houghton,  Mifflin,  &  Co.) 

A  History  of  Epic  Poetry,  John  Clark.     (Oliver  &  Boyd.) 

English  Epic  and  Heroic  Poetry,  W.  Macneale  Dixon.     (J.  M.  Dent  &  Co.) 

The  Heroic  Age,  H.  Munro  Chadwick.     (Cambridge  University  Press.) 

Forms  of  English  Poetry,  C.  F.  Johnson.     (American  Book  Company.) 

Handbook  of  Poetics,  Francis  B.  Gummere.     (Ginn  &  Co.) 

Epic  and  Romance,  W.  P.  Ker.     (Macmillan  &  Co.) 


THE   CHIEF  TYPES  OF  LITERATURE  359 

II.  The  Study  of  the  Drama 

The  life  of  the  EngUsh  people  found  most  complete  expression 
in  the  drama  during  the  time  of  Elizabeth.  At  that  point  of 
time  in  the  historical  growth  of  English  literature,  therefore, 
the  drama  as  a  type  might  well  be  studied.  If  it  is  studied  at 
that  point,  the  pupil  should  be  guided  in  applying  to  modern 
drama  the  laws  discovered  in  his  study  of  the  classics  of  the 
age  of  Elizabeth  and  Shakespeare.  Of  course  he  must  be  care- 
ful to  distinguish  between  laws  or  principles  on  the  one  hand  and 
convenient  practices  on  the  other  hand.  For  exaniple,  he  must 
not  think  that,  because  he  finds  the  Elizabethan  drama  divided 
into  five  acts  in  volumes  printed  to-day,  the  drama  has,  there- 
fore, always  been  so  divided,  or  even  was  always  so  divided  in 
the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  or  is  generally  so  divided 
now.  The  fact  is  that  some  of  the  Shakespearean  plays  were 
not  divided  into  five  acts ;  also  that  many  of  the  best  plays 
to-day  have  only  four  and  even  as  few  as  three  acts,  and  that 
even  the  one-act  play  seems  about  to  become  a  very  popular 
thing. 

The  drama  defined.  —  The  basic  principle  of  the  drama  is 
action.  The  drama  is  that  form  of  literature  which  by  means  of 
dialogue  alone  develops  characters  through  a  series  of  minor 
crises  which  make  up  one  great  crisis  in  the  life  of  those  char- 
acters. The  central  figure  in  each  drama  is  consumed  with  de- 
sire for  something,  which  is  striven  for  with  all  the  intensity  of 
his  being;  but  he  is  blinded  in  some  way,  either  as  to  the 
possibility  of  getting  what  he  wants  or  as  to  the  best  way  in 
which  to  strive  for  it. 

Tragedy.  —  In  all  tragedy  the  free  will  of  the  individual  is 
involved.  When  the  chief  figure's  free  will  clashes  with  insur- 
mountable obstacles,  such  as  fate  or  Providence,  or  the  laws  of 


360  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

nature,  either  within  himself  or  without,  there  is  tragedy,  and, 
usually,  death.  The  hero  is,  in  fact,  defeated  in  advance. 
Necessity  without,  freedom  within,  make  tragedy. 

Comedy. — But  if  the  obstacles  are  not  absolutely  insur- 
mountable, if  the  conditions  are  equalized,  if  two  human  wills, 
or  a  human  will  and  its  environment,  are  set  in  opposition  and 
the  outcome  is  a  happy  one,  then  we  have  comedy. 

General  structure.  — The  plan  upon  which  plays  are  usually 
built  consists  of  five  parts,  commonly  called  (i)  the  exposition,  (2) 
the  development  or  rising  movement  of  the  action,  (3)  the  climax, 
(4)  the  falling  action,  and  (5)  the  catastrophe,  or  outcome. 
These  parts  are  not  always  of  proportionate  length.  In  some 
plays  the  climax  comes  near  the  middle,  the  descending  action 
and  the  outcome  occupying  almost  the  whole  of  the  second  half 
of  the  play.  In  others  the  climax  is  found  near  the  end  of  the 
play,  the  descending  action  and  outcome  being  presented  in  a 
very  brief  and  abrupt  manner. 

The  exposition  has  two  purposes:  first,  to  look  backward 
and  clear  away  the  mists  of  uncertainty,  and  thus  to  make 
the  critical  situation  plain;  and,  second,  to  look  forward, 
thereby  making  the  opening  scene  an  organic  part  of  the 
play.  Occasionally  the  full  exposition  does  not  come  at  the 
beginning  of  the  play,  but  is  brought  in  much  later,  as  in  Hatnlet 
and  in  The  Tempest.  At  times  it  happens  that  the  exposition 
or  explanation  of  antecedent  circumstances  leading  to  the  criti- 
cal situation  in  the  play  is  so  gradual  that  we  do  not  get  in  all 
of  the  exposition  until  nearly,  through  the  play.  This  is  the 
case  in  Ibsen's  The  Lady  from  the  Sea,  one  of  the  few  of  his  plays 
which  ends  pleasantly.  This  Is  an  example  of  "  retrospective  " 
drama. 

The  upward  movement  of  the  action  may  be  represented  by 
a  zigzag  line  of  ups  and  downs,  but  constantly  tending  upwards. 


THE  CHIEF  TYPES  OF  LITERATURE  361 

It  usually  begins  in  the  middle  of  the  first  act  and  continues 
through  the  second  act  into  the  third.  It  must  be  natural  and 
logical,  that  is,  it  must  be  an  outgrowth  of  the  situation  sug- 
gested at  the  beginning  of  the  play,  and  must  lead  inevitably 
to  the  climax. 

From  the  beginning  of  the  complicating  movement  to 
the  climax,  suspense  gradually  increases.  Suspense  is  the 
result  of  the  conflict  of  the  hero  with  the  obstacles  which 
lie  in  his  path.  The  playwright  must  take  the  audience  or 
reader  into  his  confidence.  In  a  serious  play  the  spectator  is 
not  to  be  surprised  too  strongly ;  he  must  be  prepared  for  the 
outcome.  He  is  led  to  know ;  but  his  suspense  arises  from  the 
fact  that  the  hero  is  struggling  and  from  the  fact  that  to  the 
hero  the  outcome  of  this  struggle  is  uncertain.  Everything  in 
the  play  centers  about  the  climax.  The  climax  is  the  focal 
point  of  all  preceding  and  of  all  succeeding  action. 

There  is  danger  that  the  auditor  or  reader  will  find  the 
concluding  act  of  the  play  stale,  flat,  and  unprofitable.  "  The 
prime  function  of  the  last  act  is  to  show  the  outflow  of  the 
situation  already  laid  down  and  brought  to  its  issue  in  the 
preceding  acts  of  the  drama."  In  the  catastrophe,  tension 
must  be  conserved,  although  suspense  is  well-nigh  over.  The 
obstacles  to  the  closing  of  the  play  are  most  often  removed  one  at 
a  time.     The  effect  should  be  that  of  artistic  finish  and  finality. 

The  characters.  —  The  characters  of  a  great  play  furnish  an 
interesting  source  of  study  and  insight  into  human  nature.  If 
the  play  represents  a  long  period  of  time,  we  see  the  individual 
develop  as  time  makes  its  changes.  But  it  is  not  necessary 
that  the  time  should  be  long  in  order  to  see  character  develop- 
ment in  a  play.  Sometimes  we  live  more  in  an  hour  than  in 
years  of  humdrum  existence.  In  any  play  worth  whfle,  there  is 
character  revelation.    The  mind  and  heart  of  the  hero  are  laid 


362  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

open  as  he  meets  the  crises  of  life.-  As  the  play  progresses  he 
is  disclosed  more  and  more,  he  is  developed  or  brought  out  as 
the  photographer's  negative  is  developed  in  the  chemical  solu- 
tion, until  at  the  end  we  see  him  as  he  is. 

The  situation.  —  The  good  drama  is  built  about  a  situation. 
You  are  riding  upon  a  street-car.  You  become  interested  in 
some  man  across  the  aisle.  You  are  looking  at  him  rather 
steadily.  Suddenly  a  peculiar  expression,  of  dismay,  or  terror, 
say,  comes  across  his  face,  he  hurriedly  rings  the  bell,  and  hastens 
stumblingly  from  the  car.  That  is  an  incident.  It  may  do  for 
an  incident  out  of  which  dramatic  events  grow.  But  it  is  really 
the  state  of  mind  in  which  that  man  was  when  he  looked  terrified 
and  withdrew  so  hastily  that  is  dramatic.  He  was  evidently 
in  a  certain  mental  "  situation,"  and  that  situation  was  much 
more  important  than  the  incident  of  leaving  the  car.  An  inci- 
dent is  an  event,  while  a  situation  is  a  state  of  being ;  and  the 
tragic  or  the  comic  is  a  state  of  mind,  not  an  event. 

The  modern  theater.  —  It  should  not  be  forgotten  that  plays 
are  written  primarily  to  be  acted  in  the  theater.  Ncf  study  of 
the  drama,  however  brief,  can  fail  to  take  into  consideration 
the  modern  playhouse,  with  its  artistically  conceived  stage 
settings,  fitting  music,  wonderfully  manipulated  lights,  and 
facilities  for  quick  shifting  of  scenery.  The  dramatist  of  to-day 
has  opportunities  of  this  sort  denied  to  Shakespeare  and  his 
contemporaries. 

Judging  plays.  —  The  study  of  the  great  classic  dramas  of 
English  literature  reveals  the  laws  and  principles  already  set 
forth.  The  plays  of  Shakespeare  furnish  material  for  a  lifetime 
of  study,  but  few  persons  can  give  much  of  time  to  them. 
Many  will  see  many  more  plays  than  they  will  read.  Most  of 
these  plays  will  deal  with  the  life  of  our  own  day.  Some  of 
them  will  be  worthy,  some  will  not.    It  is  well  for  the  student  to 


THE   CHIEF  TYPES  OF  LITERATURE 


2>h 


examine  a  few  modern  plays  in  the  light  of  his  knowledge 
of  the  classics,  in  order,  by  testing  them,  to  discover  if  they 
are  worthy.  Here  is  a  list  of  plays  for  study,  followed  by 
suggested  questions : 


The  Jew  of  Maltaj 

King  Leafy 

Macbeth, 

Hamlet, 

Othello, 

Romeo  and  Juliet, 

Julius  CcBsar, 

King  Richard  III, 

The  Merchant  of  Venice, 

As  You  Like  It, 

A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream, 

Twelfth  Night, 

Every  Man  in  His  Humour, 

The  Silent  Woman, 

She  Stoops  to  Conquer, 

The  Rivals, 

The  Lady  of  Lyons, 

Caste, 

Becket, 

Strafford, 

Strife, 

The  Melting  Pot, 

The  Thunderbolt, 

The  Servant  in  the  House, 

Their  Honeymoon, 

What  the  Public  Wants, 

Disraeli, 

Joseph  and  His  Brethren, 

Beau  Brummel, 

The  Piper, 

Lords  and  Lovers, 

The  King  of  the  Dark  Chamber, 


Marlowe. 

Shakespeare. 

Shakespeare. 

Shakespeare. 

Shakespeare. 

Shakespeare. 

Shakespeare, 

Shakespeare. 

Shakespeare, 

Shakespeare. 

Shakespeare. 

Shakespeare. 

Jonson. 

Jonson. 

Goldsmith, 

Sheridan, 

Bulwer  Lytton. 

Robertson, 

Tennyson. 

Browning. 

Galsworthy, 

Zangwill. 

Pinero. 

Kennedy. 

Bennett. 

Bennett 

Parker, 

Parker. 

Fitch, 

Peabody. 

Dargan, 

Tagore. 


364  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

One  Act  Plays 

The  Rising  of  the  Moon,  Lady  Gregory. ' 

Riders  to  the  Sea,  J.  M,  Synge. 

The  Pot  of  Broth,  W.  B.  Yeats. 

The  King's  Threshold,  W.  B.  Yeats. 

Rosalind,  J.  M.  Barrie. 

The  Lost  Silk  Hat,  Lord  Dunsany. 

The  Carrier-Pigeon^  Eden  Phillpotts. 

QUESTIONS 

Is  the  play  just  read  a  tragedy  or  a  comedy?    Give  your  reasons. 

Is  there  a  real  crisis  in  this  play  ?     Describe  it,  if  so. 

How  is  the  situation  made  clear  in  the  exposition  ?  Where  is  the  exposi- 
tion in  this  play  ? 

Is  the  situation  tense  enough  to  excite  you  at  the  very  outset?  What  is 
meant  by  "  tenseness  "  ? 

Do  the  past  events  determine  the  trend  of  the  action  ?     Explain. 

Is  the  plot  new  to  you  ? 

Can  you  find  a  similar  story?     If  so,  tell  it  in  brief. 

Are  there  sub-plots?    What  purposes  do  sub-plots  achieve? 

Has  the  play  a  real  struggle?    Between  what  forces? 

Does  the  struggle  make  the  play?     If  not,  what  does? 

Is  one  side  entirely  right,  the  other  entirely  wrong  ?     Explain  fuUy. 

Are  you  pleased  with  the  outcome  of  the  struggle?    Why? 

Did  you  anticipate  it?     If  so,  show  how. 

In  what  other  way  could  it  end? 

Is  the  drama  adapted  to  the  stage  or  is  the  movement  too  slow  for  repre- 
sentation?   What  changes  would  you  suggest  for  adaptation  to  the  stage? 

What  is  the  theme  ? 

Does  it  appeal  to  popular  taste  ?  Is  that  a  good  test  ?  Give  your  reasons 
for  thinking  as  you  do. 

Is  the  theme  developed  simply?     Could  any  scene  be  omitted? 

How  has  the  equipment  of  the  modern  theater  influenced  the  development 
of  this  theme  ? 

Are  there  many  characters?  How  many?  What  are  essential  and 
what  subsidiary? 


THE  CHIEF  TYPES  OF  LITERATURE  365 

How  many  different  types  are  represented?  Classify  each  of  the  char- 
acters accordingly. 

Do  the  characters  develop,  or  are  they  simply  revealed? 

Do  they  reveal  themselves,  or  do  others  reveal  them? 

Are  they  worth  studying?    Why,  or  why  not? 

Do  you  know  people  like  them?     Who  and  where? 

Where  is  the  climax  ? 

Is  your  interest  held  after  the  climax  ?     By  what  ? 

Is  any  element  of  the  story  missing  when  the  climax  is  reached  ?  Supply 
it,  if  there  is. 

Does  the  play  drop  to  an  abrupt  ending? 

What  impression  did  you  have  when  it  was  ended? 

Does  that  impression  remain  with  you  now?     How  clearly? 

Would  you  rather  see  a  play  than  read  it?    Why? 

Is  it  better  to  read  a  play  before  or  after  seeing  it?     Give  reasons. 

Is  the  play  worth  while?  What  makes  it  so,  or  what  does  it  lack  which 
prevents  it  ? 

What  was  the  author's  purpose? 

Did  he  accomplish  it  ?     Distinguish  between  purpose  and  effect. 

Did  he  write  it  for  the  "star"?     Does  that  help  or  hinder,  and  why? 

Is  it  a  picture  of  real  life  or  fanciful? 

Would  the  characters  have  acted  as  they  do  if  in  real  life? 

Does  the  play  have  a  moral  purpose?     What  is  it? 

Is  that  its  chief  purpose  or  is  that  one  incidental? 

Do  you  want  to  see  or  read  it  again  ?     Give  reasons. 

Compare  the  one-act  play  with  the  short-story,  in  subject  matter  and  in 
method. 

BOOKS  'THAT  WILL  AID   IN  THE   STUDY  OF  THE    DRAMA 

Play-Making,  A  Manual  of  Craftsmanship,  William  Archer.     (Small,  May- 

nard,  &  Co.) 
The  Appreciation  of  the  Drama,  Charles  H.  Cafhn.     (Baker  &  Taylor.) 
The  Art  of  Play-Writing,^ Mh^A  Hennequin.    (Houghton  Mifflin  Company.) 
The  Children's  Educational   Theatre,   Alice   Minnie   Herts.     (Harper  and 

Brothers.) 
The  Play  of  To-day,  Elizabeth  R.  Hunt.     (John  Lane  Company.) 
Study  of  the  Drama,  Brander  Matthews.     (Houghton  Mifflin  Company.) 
The  Footlights,  Fore  and  Aft,  Channing  Pollock.     (Badger.) 


366  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

The  Drama,  Its  Law  and  Technique,  Elizabeth  Woodbridge.     (Alljii  and 

Bacon.) 
Dramatists  of  To-day,  Edward  Everett  Hale,  Jr.     (Henry  Holt  &  Co.) 
The  Modern  Drama,  Ludwig  Lewisohn.     (B.  W.  Huebsch.) 

III.  The  Study  of  the  Essay 

What  it  is.  —  It  has  already  been  pointed  out  ^  that  a  fairly 
correct  definition  of  the  essa-y  may  be  reached  by  combining  Dr. 
Johnson's  idea  of  it  with  that  of  Francis  Bacon.  A  modern 
critic  suggests  that  the  essay  is  properly  employed  for  "  indi- 
cating certain  aspects  of  a  subject,  or  suggesting  thoughts  con- 
cerning it,  .  .  .  not  a  formal  siege,  but  a  series  of  assaults, 
essays,  or  attempts  upon  it."  He  speaks  of  the  literary  essay- 
ist as  the  excursionist  of  literature,  the  literary  angler,  the  medi- 
tator, rather  than  the  thinker;  but  many  essays  are  highly 
thoughtful  indeed. 

Further  characteristics  of  the  essay.  —  The  essay  has  a  wide 
range  of  subject  matter.  It  may  be  a  letter  to  a  friend,  a  bit 
of  paradox  or  fancy,  a  scene  from  history,  or  the  development 
of  a  new  idea  or  a  new  application  of  an  old  idea.  It  is  often 
more  personal  than  any  other  form  of  prose  writing.  It  is  much 
like  conversation.  In  many  essays  the  author  seems  to  sit 
down  beside  us  and  talk  with  us.  It  is  this  personal  element 
which  is  the  most  prominent  characteristic  of  the  best  essays 
to-day.  This  is  not  so  true  of  the  Baconian  type  of  essays.  They 
are  rather  impersonal,  while  those  after  the  manner  of  Mon- 
taigne, the  French  writer,  are  decidedly  personal.  The  purpose 
of  Assays  of  the  Baconian  type  is  to  instruct ;  they  are  made 
vehicles  for  the  display  of  learning. 

Critical  essays.  —  The  critical  essayist  endeavors  to  "  learn 
and  propagate  the  best  that  is  known  and  thought  in  the  world." 
He  blames,  praises,  explains,  analyzes,  interprets.    He  seeks 


THE   CHIEF  TYPES  OF  LITERATURE  367 

for  truth;  he  seeks  to  "  establish  the  facts  of  literature  and  to 
pass  judgment  on  the  value  and  significance  of  those  facts." 
Criticism  may  be  destructive  in  that  it  attempts  to  overthrow 
an  accepted  theory  or  an  established  reputation ;  or  constructive 
in  that  it  aims  to  establish  new  ideas  and  principles.  No  two 
critics  ever  fully  agree  at  great  length.  The  judgment  of  each 
is  affected  by  his  personality,  point  of  view,  and  training,  so 
that  it  is  impossible  for  him  to  see  exactly  as  the  others  do. 
Criticism  is  discussed  more  fully  in  this  chapter,  on  pages  394-398. 

The  endowment  of  the  essayist.  —  Since  the  essay  is  the 
freest  and  most  personal  of  all  forms  of  prose  writing,  the  essayist 
must  be  richly  endowed.  He  should  have  a  rich  imagination, 
a  flexible  style,  a  cheery  spirit,  and  a  large  mind.  He  should 
stimulate  the  fancy,  please  with  his  imagery,  and  warm  the 
heart  with  his  human  touch.  He  passes  history  before  us  in 
review,  he  judges  men  and  nations,  and  he  makes  analyses  of 
men's  hearts  and  minds,  —  all  of  this  requires  a  fine  and  high 
endowment  of  mind  and  character. 

Suggestions  for  study  of  the  essay.  —  An  essay  should  first 
be  read  through  without  interruption,  to  secure  the  general 
idea.  Then  it  should  be  read  again,  to  get  the  full  thought  and 
purpose  of  the  essayist.  To  determine  the  purpose  of  the  essay 
is  very  important.  Is  it  serious,  humorous,  satirical,  fanciful? 
To  take  a  humorous  essay  too  seriously  is  to  miss  the  whole 
point  of  it,  though  there  is  such  a  thing  as  serious  humor.  A 
third  reading  should  be  for  the  purpose  of  examining  in  detail 
the  structure  of  the  whole  essay,  the  paragraph  plan,  and  the 
sentence  form.  Notice  how  the  writer  has  varied  his  structure 
to  suit  his  purposes,  how  he  has  decorated  it,  it  may  be,  and 
beautified  his  thought  with  imagery,  how  he  has  devised  ways 
and  means  for  producing  the  desired  effects.  The  essay  should 
be  then  read  a  fourth  time,  with  the  intent  of  discovering  to 


368 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE 


what  extent  the  personality  of  the  essayist  appears  in  his  work, 
and  how  much  more,  therefore,  the  essay  means  than  it  meant 
to  the  reader  before  examining  in  the  full  all  that  the  writer 
has  put  into  the  essay.  Perhaps,  then,  a  fifth  reading  would 
repay,  and  in  this  reading,  one  might  well  consider  the 
relationship  of  this  essay  to  others  of  its  kind,  and  the  essayist's 
relationship  to  other  essayists.  Possibly  many  an  intelligent 
student  will  get  all  these  things  in  no  more  than  a  third  read- 
ing, but  the  trained  and  vigorous-minded  adult  reader  generally 
adds  to  his  pleasure  and  profit  by  repeated  readings. 


ESSAYISTS  AND  ESSAYS  ONE  SHOULD   KNOW 

Bacon,  Of  Great  Place.     In  Essays :  or  Councils,  Civil  and  Moral. 

Johnson,  The  Advantages  of  Living  in  a  Garret.     In  No.  117  of  The 

Rambler. 

Addison,  The  Tory  Fox-Hunter.    In  No.  22  of  The  Freeholder. 

Steele,  No.  132  of  The  Taller. 

Swift,  The  Battle  of  the  Books.    In  Early  Works. 

De  Quincey,    Joan  of  Arc. 

Macaulay,        Madame  D'Arblay.    In  Miscellaneous  Essays. 

Carlyle,  The  Hero  as  Poet.     In  Heroes  and  Hero-Worship. 

RusKiN,  The  Entry  into  Venice.     In  Stones  of  Venice',  Volume  II, 

chapter  i,  sections  i  and  2. 

Arnold,  Oxford,     from    the    essay   on   Sweetness  and   Light.     In 

Cidture  and  Anarchy. 

Huxley,  On  a  Piece  of  Chalk.    In  Lay  Sermons,  Addresses,  and  Re- 

views. 

Stevenson,  An  Apology  for  Idlers.  In  Virginihus  Puerisque  and  Other 
Papers. 

Irving,  John  Bull.     In  the  Sketch-Book. 

Emerson,  Self-Reliance.     In  Essays,  First  Series. 

Thoreau,  On  Style.     In  A  Week  on  the  Concord  and  Merrimack  Rivers, 

pages  130-137. 

Lowell,  On  a  Certain  Condescension  in  Foreigners.    In  the  Atlantic 

Monthly,  for  January,  1869. 


THE   CHIEF  TYPES  OF  LITERATURE  369 

Warner,  How  I  Killed  a  Bear.     In  A-Hunting  of  the  Deer,  and  Other 

Essays. 
Sharp,  "  Musrattin'."    In  A  Watcher  in  the  Woods. 

Lucas,  Concerning  Breakfast.     In  Fireside  and  Sunshine. 

Two  excellently  representative  collections  of  essays  are  the 
following : 

Great  English  Essayists,  Dawson  and  Dawson,  in  the  series  known  as  "The 
Modern  Readers'  Library."     (Harper  and  Brothers.) 

The  Oxford  Book  of  American  Essays,  Brander  Matthews.  (Oxford  Uni- 
versity Press.) 

QUESTIONS 

What  is  the  purpose  of  the  essay  you  have  just  read  ? 

What  is  its  theme? 

Does  it  deal  with  a  subject  of  universal  interest?  What  is  meant  by  uni- 
versal interest? 

Does  it  appeal  to  only  one  class  of  readers  ?     If  so,  to  what  class  ? 

What  is  the  tone  of  the  essay  ?  Is  the  essayist  in  earnest  ?  Is  he  usually 
in  earnest  in  his  other  writings? 

Is  he  careful  of  structure?  Point  out  excellences,  and  defects  if  there 
are  any. 

Make  an  outline  of  the  essay. 

What  different  methods  of  paragraph  development  are  used? 

Point  out  the  chief  kinds  of  sentences  employed. 

What  devices  are  used  to  secure  special  effects? 

Does  the  essay  charm  you  or  repel  you  or  are  you  indifferent  to  it,  and 
for  what  reasons? 

Classify  the  best  examples  of  imagery  in  the  essay. 

Does  it  touch  the  heart  or  the  intellect  chiefly?  Which  is  the  more  im- 
portant to  affect? 

What  are  the  characteristics  of  the  author  as  one  might  learn  them  from 
this  essay?    Would  you  enjoy  him  as  your  guest ? 

Was  he  pleased  with  this  essay?    What  is  the  evidence? 

Do  you  think  it  worth  reading  and  study?     Why? 

To  what  class  of  essays  does  this  one  belong  ? 

How  does  it  compare  in  value  with  others  you  have  read? 

2B 


37<^  iENGLISH  LITERATURE 

rv.  The  Study  of  the  Novel 

Definition.  —  The  novel  is  a  record  of  action  due  to  emotion, 
the  story  in  prose  of  a  human  life  touched  by  emotion  or  by 
passionate  thought.  Its  distinctive  function  is  to  show  the 
gradual  development  of  character.  Sidney  Lanier,  after  point- 
ing out  that  the  novelist  reveals  the  heart  of  his  characters 
and  passes  judgment  upon  them,  says,  "  This  consideration 
seems  to  me  to  lift  the  novel  to  the  very  highest  and  holiest 
plane  of  creative  effort:  he  who  takes  up  the  pen  of  the  novelist 
assumes  as  to  that  novel  to  take  up  along  with  it  the  omnis- 
cience of  God." 

The  statement  has  been  made  that  when  one  or  more  of  the 
chief  motives  of  human  conduct,  love,  valor,  or  religion,  move 
men  to  action  which  ends  in  the  achievement  or  failure  of  their 
purposes,  the  record  of  this  action  results  in  the  romantic  novel, 
and  that  when  characters  reveal  themselves  chiefly  through 
their  conversation  or  through  what  is  said  about  them,  there 
results  the  realistic  novel.  Exact  realism  in  literature  is  im- 
possible, but  the  realistic  novel,  with  its  instinct  for  truth,  and 
its  desire  to  awaken  thought,  attempts  to  present  pictures  of 
real  life.  These  pictures  are  always  colored,  of  course,  by  the 
personal  equipment  and  experience  of  the  author.  Professor 
Charles  F.  Home  says  that  "  The  novel  deals  with  man  in  his 
relation  to  his  environment.  Hence  it  must  have  two  essentials, 
the  man  and  his  movements,  that  is,  the  characters  and  the 
story.  The  causes  and  effects  of  these  two  essentials  give  us 
two  more.  The  man  can  move  only  as  he  is  swayed  internally  by 
his  emotions;  and  the  movement  can  only  be  seen  externally 
in  its  effect  on  his  surroundings,  the  background.  These  four 
form  the  positive  elements  or  content  of  the  novel,  and  they 
must  be  presented  under  the  limitations  set  by  man's  experi- 


THE   CHIEF  TYPES   OF  LITERATURE  371 

ence  of  life,  or  verisimilitude,  and  by  his  inadequate  modes  of 
conveying  ideas,  his  style  of  speech." 
We  may  consider  the  elements  of  a  novel  under  five  heads : 

1.  Theme 

2.  Plot 

3.  Characters 

4.  Setting 

5.  Author's  personality 

The  theme.  —  The  theme  of  every  novel  of  importance  is, 
in  general,  truth  of  some  sort ;  the  most  broadly  general  pur- 
pose of  every  novel  is  to  present  truth.  But  truth  appears  in 
many  phases.  The  purpose  of  a  novel  may  be  to  give  pleasure 
in  the  presentation  of  truth,  and  that  is  a  very  worthy  purpose. 
It  may  aim  at  some  evil  which  the  author  thinks  should  be 
eradicated,  or  at  some  problem  to  be  solved.  The  theme  may 
appear  plainly  in  the  book,  so  that  we  cannot  forget  it  even  if 
we  would.     It  may  be  hidden ;   but  it  is  always  there. 

The  plot.  —  The  plot  is  the  weaving  or  tracing  of  a  single 
series  of  events.  The  word  "  plot  "  in  general  means  a  secret 
plan.  In  a  novel  it  means  such  a  plan  worked  out  by  means 
of  characters  acting  through  a  series  of  incidents  to  an  un- 
expected end.  Causes  and  consequences  are  woven  together 
in  a  pattern.  Events  are  traced  from  their  beginnings  to  their 
logical  ends.  Nothing  should  be  in  the  excellent  novel  that  is 
not  an  organic  part  of  the  whole  story.  The  course  of  the  plot 
may  be  represented  by  a  series  of  steps  leading  to  a  summit 
from  which  all  the  steps  can  be  looked  back  upon,  and  from  which 
the  reader  might  be  expected  to  understand  all  that  he  has  seen. 
In  a  novel  which  is  meant  to  teach  a  lesson,  one  may  be  expected 
from  this  summit  to  look  into  a  future  clearer  than  it  would 
have  been  had  not  the  story  been  told. 


372  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

Another  way  to  look  at  a  plot  is  from  the  standpoint  of 
the  characteristics  that  should  be  present  in  every  good 
story.  These  characteristics  are  adequacy  of  motive  for  the 
actions  of  the  characters,  conformity  of  the  action  to  the 
nature  of  the  characters,  progression  or  real  onward  advance  of 
movement  in  the  action,  and  unity  of  purpose,  of  form,  and  of 
substance. 

The  characters.  —  Of  equal  importance  with  the  plot,  in 
the  study  of  the  novel,  are  the  characters.  The  characters 
of  a  great  novel  stand  out  distinctly  upon  their  background; 
they  seem  to  live ;  they  influence  the  reader  as  his  acquaintances 
do.  How  does  the  author  contrive  to  secure  this  effect  ?  The 
characters  have  first  lived  in  his  brain  and  heart,  and  he  reveals 
them  to  others.  By  setting  down  their  speech,  by  showing  their 
actions,  and  by  reflecting  their  thought,  he  makes  them  known. 
Characters  are  conceived  by  their  authors  either  idealized  (if 
compared  with  life  as  it  is),  or  natural  as  life  itself,  or  as  cari- 
catured from  life.  There  may  be  in  a  novel  few  or  many  char- 
acters. There  are  usually  fewer  than  twelve.  Sometimes 
there  are  many  more  (in  Dickens's  Pickwick  Papers  over  three 
hundred) ;  in  such  a  case  they  may  be  considered  as  either 
principal  or  subordinate  characters.  If  an  author  has  created 
many  strong  characters  of  differing  individuality  or  of  different 
types,  he  is  sure  to  rank  high  as  a  writer. 

How  the  characters  are  presented  should  also  be  noted.  Per- 
haps it  may  be  that  dress  is  described  in  detail,  for  the  apparel 
oft  proclaims  the  man.  Perhaps  it  is  some  peculiarity  of  manner 
which  identified  the  character.  Sometimes  the  characters  are  in- 
troduced into  the  narrative  suddenly,  to  occasion  surprise.  Often 
the  reader  is  carefully  prepared,  as  the  audience  in  the  theater 
usually  is,  for  the  entrance  of  the  principal  character.  The  first 
and  last  appearances  of  a  leading  or  principal  character  are  im- 


THE   CHIEF  TYPES  OF  LITERATURE  373 

portant.  The  minor  characters  also  are  of  use,  for  many  reasons, 
but  chiefly  because  they  give  the  novelist  opportunity,  by  means 
of  them,  to  develop  his  chief  personages. 

The  development  of  characters  is  usually  slow  in  great  novels. 
The  changes  in  them  are  made  gradually  by  the  forces  at  work 
upon  them  as  individuals  and  in  groups.  This  development 
follows  different  lines  with  different  individuals,  but  the  sort 
of  growth  that  is  most  interesting  to  the  great  novelists  is  moral 
growth.  It  may  be  upward,  it  may  be  downward ;  but  nothing 
holds  greater  interest  for  men  and  women  who  read  than  a 
record  of  the  moral  disintegration  or  the  moral  victory  of  a 
human  soul. 

The  setting.  —  The  setting  or  background  furnishes  both  the 
stage  for  action  and  the  tone  of  the  story.  If  the  setting  is 
bleak,  disagreeable,  barren,  we  expect  a  sad  tale.  On  the  other 
hand,  a  setting  beautiful,  joyous,  pulsating  with  happy  life,  is 
fitting  for  a  story  of  sunshine  and  laughter.  In  a  sense  broader 
than  the  physical,  "  every  touch  which  helps  to  reveal  or  im- 
press the  environment  is  background."  At  times  the  whole 
nation  serves  as  setting  in  the  novel.  Again,  it  may  be  a  partic- 
ular locality,  with  all  its  intimate  social,  economic,  and  reli- 
gious life.  Sometimes  by  its  very  contrast  with  the  personality 
of  the  characters  the  setting  serves  to  make  the  story  more  im- 
pressive. 

The  author's  personality.  —  Has  the  author  kept  himself 
out  of  his  book?  No  author  can  do  that  entirely.  It  is  of 
value  for  the  student  to  discover  how  much  of  the  author's 
personality  may  be  found  in  his  book,  in  order  to  see  whether 
the  book  is  better  because  the  author  is  found  there,  or  whether 
the  author  has  come  between  the  story  and  the  reader  by  hinder- 
ing the  development  of  any  of  his  characters.  Generally,  how- 
ever much  they  keep  themselves  hidden,  we  come  to  honor  the 


374 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE 


great  novelists  as  we  read  their  works,  because  their  lives  have 
gone  into  the  creation  of  their  stories.  They  reveal  themselves 
in  every  aspect  of  their  work,  —  in  the  choice  and  use  of 
words,  in  the  structure,  in  the  subject  matter,  in  the  spirit, 
and  in  the  purpose  of  their  books. 

The  following  list  contains  a  few  of  the  great  novels  of  British 
literature,  and  American;  some  of  assured  secondary  rank; 
and  some  too  recent  for  final  judgment. 


A  Reading  List 


Robinson  Crusoe, 

Clarissa  Harlowe, 

Pride  and  Prejudice, 

Ivanhoe, 

Quentin  Durward, 

Anne  of  Geierstein, 

Guy  Mannering, 

Waverley, 

The  Antiquary, 

The  Heart  of  Midlothian, 

Jane  Eyre, 

Cranford, 

The  Last  Days  of  Pompeii, 

The  Cloister  and  the  Hearth, 

SUas  Marner, 

The  Mill  on  the  Floss, 

Middlemarch, 

Romola, 

David  Copperfield, 

Oliver  Twist, 

Nicholas  Nickleby, 

The  Tale  of  Two  Cities, 

Hard  Times, 

The  Newcomes, 

Henry  Esmond, 

Vanity  Fair, 


Defoe. 

Richardson. 

Jane  Austen. 

Scott. 

Scott. 

Scott. 

Scott. 

Scott. 

Scott. 

Scott. 

Charlotte  Bront6. 

Mrs.  Gaskell. 

Bulwer  Lytton. 

Reade. 

George  Eliot. 

George  Eliot. 

George  Eliot. 

George  Eliot. 

Dickens. 

Dickens. 

Dickens. 

Dickens. 

Dickens. 

Thackeray. 

Thackeray. 

Thackeray. 


THE   CHIEF   TYPES   OF  LITERATURE 


375 


The  Last  of  the  Mohicans ^ 

The  Pilot, 

The  Spy, 

The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables, 

Cooper. 
Cooper. 
Cooper. 
Hawthorne. 

The  Scarlet  Letter, 

Hawthorne. 

The  Marble  Faun, 

Hawthorne. 

Lorna  Doone, 

Blackmore. 

Treasure  Island, 

Stevenson. 

Tom  Sawyer, 

The  Return  of  the  Native, 

The  Rise  of  Silas  Lapham, 

Mark  Twain. 
"Hardy. 
Howells. 

Captains  Courageous, 
The  Crisis, 

Kipling. 
Churchill. 

Alice-for-short, 

Septimus, 

The  Amateur  Gentleman, 

De  Morgan. 

Locke. 

Farnol. 

The  Harbor, 

Poole. 

f 


QUESTIONS 

What  kind  of  novel  did  you  last  read  ?     Realistic,  or  of  what  sort  ? 

What  was  its  theme?  Did  the  author  stick  to  it?  Show  how  he 
wavered,  if  he  did  waver  from  the  theme  ?     Is  it  satisfactorily  worked  out  ? 

Why  did  the  author  begin  his  story  just  where  he  did? 

Are  you  satisfied  with  the  conclusion  ?     Why  ? 

How  would  you  change  it,  if  not  satisfied  ? 

Why  did  the  author  spread  the  story  over  just  the  range  of  time  he  did? 

Give  the  geography  of  the  story. 

Why  is  that  locality  employed  and  no  other? 

Did  the  author  open  up  a  new  world  to  you  ?     What  kind  of  world  ? 

Has  he  changed  your  views  of  the  theme  ?     If  so,  in  what  respects  ? 

Do  the  characters  impress  you  as  living,  stationary,  developing? 

Is  there  an  adequate  reason  given  for  the  changes  in  them?  Point  it 
out,  if  there  is. 

Describe  the  physical  appearance  and  dress  of  the  leading  characters. 

How  many  characters  are  prominent  ? 

How  many  altogether? 

Why  did  the  author  have  precisely  that  number,  no  more  and  no  less  ? 

Which  ones  do  you  like ?     Why? 


376  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

Are  they  strong?  lovable?  wholesome? 
Why  do  you  dislike  others  ? 

In  what  spirit  are  the  characters  handled  by  the  novelist? 
Give  the  plot  clearly  in  a  short  paragraph. 
Is  the  plot  adequately  motivated  ? 
Does  it  move  steadily  forward  ? 
What  conflicting  forces  are  found  in  the  plot  ? 

Is  there  a  sub-plot  ?     Outline  it,  and  show  its  relation  to  the  main  plot. 
Is  the  plot  more  prominent  than  the  characters  ?    What  efifect  does  this 
have  ? 

Is  the  story  complete,  and  well-balanced  in  its  parts? 

What  are  the  elements  of  the  setting  ? 

How  do  they  affect  this  story? 

What  purpose  had  the  novelist  in  writing  the  book  ? 

Did  he  accomplish  it  ? 

In  what  ways  was  it  worth  while? 

Is  it  worth  reading  several  times? 

Have  you  tried  re-reading  it  ? 

How  does  the  author  reveal  himself  in  the  book? 

What  kind  of  person  is  he  ? 

What  other  works  of  his  have  you  read  ? 

Does  he  appear  the  same  in  all  ?    Point  out  the  differences,  if  any  exist. 

Do  you  recommend  his  books  to  your  classmates?     For  what  reasons? 

An  example  of  a  qtiesHon  analysis  of  a  novel. 

THE  MARBLE   FAUN 

Vol.  I 

In  what  terms  has  the  author,  in  the  first  chapter,  defined  the  general 
purpose  of  the  book  ? 

In  what  terms  has  he  described  the  general  nature  of  the  contents? 

In  what  way  does  the  second  chapter  help  to  fulfill  the  purpose  of  the  book, 
as  that  purpose  is  expressed  in  chapter  i  ? 

In  what  way  does  the  material  in  the  second  chapter  serve  to  illustrate  the 
description  of  the  general  contents  as  given  in  chapter  i  ? 

What  would  be  your  opinion  of  uniting  chapters  3  and  4  into  one 
chapter? 


THE   CHIEF  TYPES  OF  LITERATURE  377 

In  what  respect  is  the  "wonderful  resemblance  of  Donatello  to  the  Faun 
of  Praxiteles  the  key-note  of  our  narrative"? 

How  do  present-day  writers  differ  from  Hawthorne  in  the  use  of  retrospec- 
tive material  such  as  is  found  in  chapters  3  and  4  ? 

Note  in  chapter  5  the  three  sorts  of  subject  matter,  or,  perhaps  better, 
three  sources  from  which  subject  matter  comes  to  the  artist's  hand  for  use. 

From  the  appreciation  of  Hilda  in  chapters  6  and  7,  what  terms  might  be 
employed  to  describe  the  perfect  critic  ? 

How  is  chapter  7  related  to  the  plot  of  the  story  ? 

At  least  what  two  reasons  are  there  for  separating  the  material  in  chapters 
8,  9,  and  10  into  three  parts?  . 

How  does  the  chapter  entitled  "Fragmentary  Sentences"  advance  the 
plot? 

At  what  point  in  the  book  can  we  say,  "Now  the  material  for  the  weaving 
and  unweaving  of  the  plot  is  all  in"? 

Note  the  description  of  the  creative  process  of  art  as  it  is  worded  by 
Kenyon  about  the  middle  of  chapter  14.  Note  also  the  climactic  effect  of 
the  incidents  towards  the  close  of  this  chapter. 

The  relationship  of  the  portfolio  of  pictures,  chapter  15,  to  following 
events  ? 

What  is  accumulated  in  chapter  16  towards  the  bringing  about  of  the 
climax  of  the  story? 

What  is  your  opinion  of  the  leisurely  manner  of  presenting  details  in  chap- 
ters 17  and  18? 

The  strongest  scene  in  chapters  19-23?  What  are  the  elements  of  its 
strength? 

Why  end  volume  i  with  "Sunshine"?  Does  it,  literally,  so  end?  Had 
you  any  idea  at  the  end  of  chapter  25  who  the  alms-giver  was? 

Suggest  some  things  in  Volume  I  which  indicate  rather  closely  the  date  of 
the  events  in  the  book. 

Vol.  II 

Characterize  the  style  of  chapter  i  of  volume  II  (chapter  26,  if  your  book 
is  in  one  volume).     What  is  style  in  literature? 

The  significance  of  the  last  paragraph  of  chapter  3,  vol.  II? 

Of  points  tending  directly  to  suggest  advance  of  the  plot,  how  many  aver- 
age per  chapter  in  chapters  1-5  of  this  volume? 

If  chapter  7  is  read  at  once  after  you  have  finished  reading  chapter  6, 


378  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

not€  the  immediate  arousing  of  the  sensation  of  rhythmic  motion,  —  not 
merely  as  if  a  journey  were  about  to  begin,  but  as  if  movement  of  plot  were 
now  ready  to  swing  onward. 

What  in  chapters  7,  8,  and  9  advances  the  plaiting  of  the  strands  of  the' 
story? 

In  chapter  10,  Kenyon  speaks  of  "the  crisis  being  what  it  is."  Does 
chapter  10  contain  the  crisis  of  the  story? 

What  purpose  is  served  by  chapters  11-16? 

Note,  at  the  end  of  chapter  16,  the  author's  statement  concerning  the  in- 
ception of  the  story. 

Of  chapters  17-20,  notice  how,  though  they  have  little  to  do  with  the  main 
plot,  the  first  and  last  of  them  bind  the  group  of  chapters  to  the  main  plot. 
State  precisely  how  they  do  this. 

Chapters  21-25  appear  to  be  the  author's  attempt  to  bring  the  story  to 
a  close.    Is  it  a  successful  ending? 

Do  you  think  that  the  story  and  characters  are  "so  artfully  and  airily 
removed"  from  ordinary  life  as  the  author  would  have  us  believe?  (See 
"  Conclusion. ") 

Do  you  agree  with  Hawthorne  when,  in  the  "  Conclusion,"  he  says  that  he 
has  "already  sinned  sufficiently"  in  his  descriptions  of  Rome? 

What  do  you  think  are  the  values  of  the  description  and  exposition  in  the 
book  as  compared  with  the  narrative  ? 

BOOKS  THAT  WILL  AID   IN  THE  STUDY  OF  THE    NOVEL 

The  Study  of  a  Novel,  S.  L.  Whitcomb.     (D.  C.  Heath  &  Co.) 
The  Technique  of  the  Novel,  Charles  F.  Home.     (Harper  and  Brothers). 
Essays  on  Modern  Novelists,  W.  L.  Phelps.     (The  Macmillan  Comp>any.) 
Materials  and  Methods  of  Fiction,  Clayton  Hamilton.     (Baker  &   Taylor 

Co.) 
A  Study  of  Prose  Fiction,  Bliss  Perry.     (Houghton  Mifflin  Company.) 
History  of  Fiction,  J.  C.  Dunlop.     (George  Bell  &  Sons.) 
A  History  of  Story-Telling,  Arthur  Ransome.     (T.  C.  &  C.  C.  Jack.) 
Principles  of  Criticism,  Basil  Worsfold.     (George  Allen.) 
Masterpieces  of  the  Masters  of  Fiction,  W.  D.  Foulke.     (The  Cosmopolitan 

Press.) 
The  Development  of  the  English  Novel,  Wilbur  L.  Cross.     (The  Macmillan 

Company.) 


THE   CHIEF  TYPES  OF  LITERATURE  379 

V.   The  Study  of  the  Lyric 

Of  all  the  forms  of  poetry  the  lyric  makes  the  widest  appeal. 
The  lyric  poet  gives  voice  in  an  idealized  way  to  his  inmost 
thought  or  emotion,  and  makes  it  universal  by  his  expression. 
The  searcher  for  beautiful  expression  of  his  own  feeling  can- 
not fail  to  find  it  in  English  lyric  poetry.  This  lyric  poetry 
covers  the  whole  realm  of  human  feeling,  and  has  given  it  sur- 
passingly beautiful  form.  No  type  of  literature  may  be 
studied  with  more  of  delight,  if  studied  with  care,  than  the  lyric. 
When  we  have,  by  study  of  the  classic  lyrics,  acquired  a  taste 
for  the  best  that  has  been  said  and  sung,  how  interesting  it  is  to 
search  the  pages  of  the  best  magazines  and  to  examine  the  books 
upon  the  library  shelves  for  current  lyric  poetry  of  real  merit. 
To  come,  in  an  unexpected  place,  upon  a  lyric  of  worth  which  fits 
our  mood  precisely,  is  a  delight  akin  to  that  of  the  discovery  of 
a  new  land  beyond  seas.  Most  readers  overlook  the  brief  poems 
—  they  are  mostly  lyrics  —  in  the  magazines.  Many  of  these 
poems  are  worthless ;  but  to  discover  one  gem  expressive  of  bur 
own  personal  thought  or  emotion  is  worth  many  hours  of  patient 
search. 

What  is  a  lyric  ?  —  The  best  lyric  poetry  is  the  product  of 
''  the  best  and  happiest  moments  of  the  happiest  and  best 
minds."  Stopford  A.  Brooke  says,  "  The  lyric  proper  is  the 
product  of  a  swift,  momentary,  passionate  impulse,  .  .  . 
suddenly  waking  the  poet,  as  it  were  out  of  a  dream,  into  vivid 
life,  seizing  upon  him  and  setting  him  on  fire  with  its  grasp, 
...  so  that  the  whole  poem  leaps  into  being  before  it  is 
written  down."  The  lyric  is  the  passionate  expression,  in  musi- 
cal form,  of  the  mood  of  the  lyrist. 

Characteristics.  —  The  lyric  is  universal  in  its  appeal.  It 
speaks  to  the  heart  of  all  mankind  in  some  one  mood.     It  is 


380  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

usually  simple  in  its  harmonies  and  structure.  Its  story  is  very 
brief,  merely  a  suggestion  of  a  story.  No  more  than  is  necessary 
is  given.  It  is  not  information  the  lyrist  seeks  to  impart.  It 
is  his  desire  to  communicate  his  passion,  —  to  make  the  reader 
share  his  mood  of  feeling.  A  lyric,  whether  primarily  of  thought 
or  of  emotion,  is  always  impregnated  with  feeling.  The  lyric 
is  seldom  long,  for  the  intensity  of  feeling  cannot  be  long  main- 
tained. This  kind  of  poem  must  be  conceived  in  the  spirit 
of  song. 

Subject  matter.  —  The  lyric  poem  is  not  confined  to  one 
theme,  though  love  in  all  its  relationships,  human  and  divine,  is 
its  chief  theme.  The  lyric  reflects  the  entire  scale  of  human  emo- 
tion. It  sings  of  religion,  patriotism,  revelry,  rejoicing,  suffer- 
ing, and  every  other  thing  which  stirs  the  mind  and  heart  of  man. 

Forms  of  the  lyric.  —  The  lyric  is  usually  found  in  one  of  the 
following  forms:  ballad,  hymn,  ode,  elegy,  threnody,  sonnet, 
and  even  epigram  and  epitaph.  Originally  the  lyric  was  always 
sung  to  the  accompaniment  of  music  upon  some  instrument, 
the  lyre  usually  being  the  instrument  employed;  hence,  the 
name  lyric  became  descriptive  of  this  song-poem.  Sometimes 
the  lyric  is  found  within  the  drama  and  even  within  the  epic. 
The  ballad  is  nearly  always  chiefly  narrative  and  hence  epical. 
But  sometimes  the  narrative  in  a  ballad  is  incidental  only  and 
the  poem  becomes  an  expression  of  intense  feeling;  in  such 
case  the  narrative  poem  loses  its  epic  character  and  becomes 
a  lyrical  ballad.  The  genuine  epic  ballad  is  a  folk-song ;  but  as 
printed  books  increase,  folk-songs  decrease.  An  example  of 
folk-song  or  epic  ballad  is  the  Anglo-Saxon  one  entitled  the 
Battle  of  Maldon.  Keats's  La  Belle  Dame  Sans  Merci  is  not  a 
genuine  ballad  or  folk-song,  but,  though  very  beautiful,  must 
be  called  an  ''  imitated  ballad."  The  lyrical  ballad  is  exempli- 
fied in  the  old  Scotch  song  beginning : 


THE   CHIEF  TYPES   OF  LTFERATURE  381 

"O  waly,  waly  up  the  bank, 

And  waly,  waly  down  the  brae, 
And  waly,  waly  yon  burn-side 

Where  I  and  my  love  wont  to  gae." 

The  jioetry  of  Burns  is  plentiful  in  lyrical  ballads. 

The  hymn  is  a  very  old  form  of  lyric.  It  sprang  from;  the 
singing  and  dancing  of  primitive  people  in  their  religious  rites. 
As  the  wild  chantings  became  orderly  and  were  reduced  to  in- 
telligible words,  hymns  resulted.  Hymns  are  usually  patriotic, 
such  as  Byron's  The  Isles  0}  Greece,  or  religious,  such  as 
Newman's  Lead,  Kindly  Light. 

The  ode  might  be  called  a  "  reflective  "  lyric'.  In  writing 
an  ode  the  poet  begins  with  a  theme  or  definite  idea,  and  his 
poem  gives  voice  to  his  reflection  upon  that  theme.  Many 
odes  are  not  very  musical,  —  an  example  is  Gray's  Elegy  written 
in  a  Country  Churchyard,  and  in  so  far  as  this  elegiac  ode  is 
not  musical  it  has  departed  from  lyrical  tone.  Odes  are  good 
examples  of  the  universal  appeal  of  poetry,  for  the  best  of  them 
are  about  the  greatness  of  some  man  or  are  the  unified  reflections 
of  the  writer  concerning  some  general  idea,  some  idea  generally 
acceptable  to  most  people.  Tennyson's  Ode  on  the  Death  of 
the  Duke  of  Wellington  and  Wordsworth's  Ode  on  Intimations  of 
Immortality  are  excellent  examples. 

An  elegy  is  very  like  an  ode ;  in  fact,  we  called  Gray's  Elegy 
an  ode.  Still  Gray's  famous  poem  reflects  no  individual  grief, 
scarcely  any  grief  at  all.  It  is  rather  impersonal,  indeed.  A 
true  elegy  is  a  song  of  grief ;  when  it  is  exalted  and  calm,  we 
are  likely  to  call  it  an  "  ode  "  ;  when  it  represents  acute  sorrow, 
passionate  and  tumultuous,  we  are  sure  to  call  it  an  "  elegy. '^ 
Any  poem  which  is  mournful  or  plaintive  might  safely  be  called 
an  elegy.  No  one  would  hesitate,  at  least,  to  call  a  funeral  song 
an  elegy.     One  of  the  most  beautiful  English  elegies,  though 


382  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

very  mild  in  its  mournfulness,  is  Swinburne's  In  Memory  0] 
Walter  Savage  Landor.     Its  first  two  stanzas  are : 

Back  to  the  flower-town,  side  by  side, 
The  bright  months  bring, 
Newborn,  the  bridegroom  and  the  bride, 
Freedom  and  spring. 

The  sweet  land  laughs  from  sea  to  sea. 
Filled  full  of  sun ; 
All  things  come  back  to  her,  beuig  free ; 
All  things  but  one. 

The  student  who  becomes  much  interested  in  elegies  would 
desire  to  study  what  is  technically  known  as  "  elegiac  verse." 
He  would  need  to  consult  such  a  dictionary  as  the  Century, 
and  such  a  text  as  Alden's  English  Verse. 

The  threnody  is  a  form  of  ode,  as  its  name  would  indicate. 
Another  name  for  the  threnody  is  the  dirge.  It  is  a  song  of 
lamentation,  and  therefore  more  limited  in  subject  matter  than 
the  Ode  proper.  It  is  for  a  specific  person,  too,  always,  though 
the  name  used  in  the  address  is  sometimes  not  the  actual 
name  of  the  person  mourned  for.  The  greatest  threnodies  in 
English  are  Milton's  Lycidas,  Shelley's  Adonais,  Tennyson's  In 
Memoriam,  Arnold's  Thyrsis,  and  Emerson's  Threnody. 

When  one  considers  the  sonnet,  it  is  necessary  to  study  some 
technical  treatment  of  this  form  of  poetry  so  popular  in  all 
languages  of  Europe.  The  sonnet  originated  in  Italy,  and  was 
composed  of  fourteen  lines  only.  The  sonnet  as  written  by 
Petrarch,  the  Italian  poet  of  the  fourteenth  century,  was  written 
about  one  idea  or  emotion.  It  was  divided  into  two  parts,  the 
first  part  consisting  of  eight  lines,  the  second  o^six  lines.  The 
first  part  was  subdivided  into  parts  of  four  lines  each,  and 
the  second  part  into  two,  of  three  lines  each.     The  divisions  were 


THE  CHIEF  TYPES   OF  LITERATURE  383 

clearly  marked  by  the  rhyme  order.  That  order  may  be  indi- 
cated thus :  abba  abba  cdc  dcd.  Milton's  sonnet  on  The  Late 
Massacre  in  Piedmont  is  written  according  to  the  method  em- 
ployed by  Petrarch.  The  rhyme  order  can  easily  be  followed  in  it. 

Avenge,  O  Lord,  thy  slaughtered  saints,  whose  bones 

Lie  scattered  on  the  Alpine  mountains  cold 

Even  them  who  kept  thy  truth  so  pure  of  old, 
When  all  our  fathers  worshipped  stocks  and  stones^    . . 
Forget  not.     In  thy  book  record  their  groans 

Who  were  thy  sheep  and  in  their  ancient  fold 

Slain  by  the  bloody  Piedmontese  that  rolled 
Mother  with  infant  down  the  rock.     Their  moans 
The  vales  redoubled  to  the  hills  and  they 

To  heaven.     Their  martyred  blood  and  ashes  sow 
O'er  all  the  Italian  folds  where  still  doth  sway 

The  triple  tyrant ;   that  from  these  may  grow 
A  hundredfold,  who  having  learnt  the  way 

Early  may  fly  the  Babylonian  woe. 

All  sonnets  are  either  of  this  type  or  variations  of  it. 
Even  this  sonnet  of  Milton  does  not  permit  the  rhyme-scheme 
to  divide  the  thought  exactly.  The  Shakespearean  sonnet 
consists  of  three  divisions  of  four  lines  each,  and  then  a  couplet 
ending  the  sonnet.  English  literature  abounds  in  beautiful 
sonnets.  Shakespeare,  Milton,  Wordsworth,  Shelley,  Keats, 
Mrs.  Browning,  D.  G.  Rossetti,  Christina  Rossetti,  Swinburne, 
all  these  are  masterly  in  the  art  of  compressing  much  that  is 
highly  beautiful  into  this  small  space  of  fourteen  lines. 

An  epigram  and  an  epitaph  were  originally  the  same  thing,  — 
a  poetical  inscription  upon  some  public  monument,  such  as  a 
tomb.  An  epitaph  is  still  written  on  a  tombstone,  or  is  sup- 
posed to  be,  but  an  epigram  is  generally  too  witty  for  such  a 
purpose  nowadays.  The  quaKties  of  an  epigram  are  best  sug- 
gested in  the  following  lines : 


384  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

The  qualities  rare  in  a  bee  that  we  meet 

In  an  epigram  never  should  fail ; 
The  body  should  always  be  little  and  sweet, 

And  a  sting  should  be  left  in  its  tail. 

The  author  of  these  lines  is  unknown.  The  lines  upon  Lady 
Pembroke,  said  by  some  to  Jiave  been  written  by  Ben  Jonson, 
but  now  supposed  to  have  been  by  William  Browne,  are  among 
the  loveliest  of  illustrations  of  the  epitaph,  — 

Underneath  this  marble  hearse 

Lies  the  subject  of  all  verse ; 

Sidney's  sister,  Pembroke's  mother. 

Death,  ere  thou  hast  slain  another, 
Wise  and  good  and  fair  as  she, 
Time  shall  throw  a  dart  at  thee. 


LYRIC 

POETS 

Spenser. 

Kipling. 

Shakespeare. 

Swinburne. 

Milton. 

Watson. 

Herrick. 

Noyes. 

Wordsworth. 

Bryant. 

Coleridge. 

Longfellow. 

Byron. 

LoweU. 

Shelley. 

Emerson. 

Keats. 

Whittier. 

Tennyson. 

Poe. 

Browning. 

Holmes. 

Mrs.  Browning. 

Lanier. 

D.  G.  Rossetti. 

Whitman. 

Christina  Rossetti. 

Aldrich. 

QUESTIONS 

How  do  you  determine  whether  the  poem  is  a  lyric? 
Who  is  its  author? 

Do  you  know  anything  about  him?     What  do  you  know  from  other 
sources  than  this  poem,  and  what  from  i^? 


THE   CHIEF  TYPES  OF  LITERATURE  3S5 

Do  you  need  to  know  anything  about  him  not  revealed  in  the 
poem? 

What  is  its  theme  ? 

Is  it  an  old  theme?     If  so,  where  else  is  it  found? 

Do  present-day  lyrists  use  this  theme  ?     Who  are  they  ? 

What  are  their  most  common  themes  ? 

Are  you  interested  in  these  themes  ?     Why  or  why  not  ? 

What  interests  you  more  in  the  poem,  —  what  is  said  or  the  manner  of 
saying  it  ? 

Point  out  the  poem's  chief  merits. 

Name  the  lyrics  you  know  by  title. 

Classify  them  as  sonnets,  odes,  elegies,  threnodies,  etc. 

How  many  can  you  repeat  from  memory  ? 

Is  time  well  spent  in  memorizing  good  lyrics  ?    Why  ? 

Have  you  in  mind  any  poem  that  you  have  mad^  your  own  ?  Does  it  give 
satisfactory  expression  to  your  own  feeling?     Recite  it. 

Do  you  pass  by  the  lyrics  in  the  current  magazines?    Why? 

Did  you  ever  have  the  satisfaction  of  discovering  for  yourself  a  good  lyric 
somewhere?  Name  it.  What  are  its  good  qualities?  Its  rhyme  plan,  if 
it  has  one? 

What  makes  the  verses  you  last  read,  poetry  ? 

Are  there  any  unusual  combinations  of  images  within  it? 

Is  there  any  internal  rhyme  ? 

What  is  the  purpose  of  rhyme  ? 

Find  a  good  definition  of  rhythm. 

Does  this  poem  help  you  to  "find  yourself,"  or  does  it  divert  your  atten- 
tion from  yourself? 

BOOKS  THAT  WILL  AID   IN  THE  STUDY  OF  THE  LYRIC 

The  English  Lyric,  Felix  Schelling.     (Houghton  Miflflin  Company.) 
Lyric  Poetry,  Ernest  Rhys.     (E.  P.  Dutton  &  Co.) 

English  Lyric  Poetry,  1 500-1700,  Francis  I.  Carpenter.     (Blackie  &  Son.) 
Lyrical  Verse  from  Elizabeth  to  Victoria,  Oswald  Crawfurd.     (Chapman  & 

Hall.) 
The  Golden  Treasury  of  Songs  and  Lyrics,  Francis  T.  Palgrave.     (The  Mac- 

millan  Company.) 
English  Sonnets,  A.  T.  Quiller-Couch.     (Chapman  &  Hall.) 


386  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

American  Sonnets,  T.  W.  Higginson  and  E.  H.  Bigelow.  (Houghton  Mifflin 
Company.) 

A  Victorian  Anthology,  E.  C.  Stedman.     (Houghton  Mifflin  Company.) 

An  American  Anthology,  E.  C.  Stedman.     (Houghton  Mifflin  Company.) 

English  Verse,  R.  M.  Alden.     (Henry  Holt  &  Co.) 

Preface  to  the  Second  Edition  of  the  Lyrical  Ballads,  William  Wordsworth. 
(Oxford  Press.) 

The  Book  of  the  Sonnet,  2  vols.,  Leigh  Hunt  and  S.  Adams  Lee.  (Sampson, 
Low,  Son  &  Marston.) 

Lectures  on  Poetry,  J.  W.  Mackail.     (Longmans,  Green  &  Co.) 

A  Defense  of  Poetry,  in  "Essays  andXetters,"  Percy  Bysshe  Shelley.  (Wal- 
ter Scott.) 

The  Poet,  in  "Essays,  Second  Series,"  R.  W.  Emerson.  (E.  P.  Button  & 
Co.) 

The  Sonnet,  Its  Origin,  etc.,  Charles  Tomlinson.     (John  Murray.) 

VI.  The  Study  of  the  Short-Story 

The  short-story  is  the  latest  of  literary  forms  to  be  consciously 
studied.  Only  recently  has  its  structure  and  technique  been 
fully  understood.  It  has  often  been  confiised  with  other  forms 
of  brief  story-telling.  Many  definitions  for  it  have  been  proposed. 
One  among  the  most  satisfactory  is  the  following :  it  is  '*  a 
brief,  imaginative  narrative,  unfolding  a  single  predominating 
incident  and  a  single  chief  character;  it  contains  a  plot,  the 
details  of  which  are  so  compressed,  and  the  whole  treatment  of 
which  is  so  organized,  as  to  produce  a  single  impression." 

The  importance  of  singleness  of  impression  in  the  short- 
story  is  not  likely  to  be  over-emphasized.  There  should  be  one 
single  purpose.  This,  more  than  anything  else,  differentiates 
the  short-story  from  most  novels.  The  novel  undertakes  to 
present  a  view  of  life  as  a  whole,  and  its  purposes  are  often 
manifold  and  comprehensive.  The  short-story  seizes  upon  one 
incident  of  life,  excluding  all  else  usually,  and  presents  that 
important  incident  in  such  way  as  to  leave  the  reader  with  a 


THE   CHIEF   TYPES   OF   LITERATURE       '  387 

single  impression.  Poe's  little  essay  upon  the  Philosophy  0] 
Composition  is  eminently  worth  reading  in  this  connection.  In 
the  novel,  plot,  character,  and  setting  may  all  be  fully  developed. 
But  this  can  rarely,  if  ever,  be  the  case  in  the  short-story ;  in 
it  the  emphasis  should  be  placed  upon  one  of  these  elements, 
though  in  such  a  story  as  Bret  Harte's  Outcasts  of  Poker  Flat 
the  author  has  almost  accomplished  the  impossible  and  given  the 
reader  the  three,  inseparably  blended  in  such  fashion  that  it  is 
difficult  to  say  that  one  is  more  important  than  the  other  two. 
Kinds  of  short-story.  —  The  simplest  classification  of  short- 
stories  is  as  follows,  — 

1.  The  story  of  Action. 

2.  The  story  of  Character. 

3.  The  story  of  Setting  (or  Atmosphere). 

4.  The  story  of  Idea. 

In  the  first,  the  plot  is  given  especial  emphasis.  The  unfold- 
ing of  the  story,  the  action,  is  the  main  thing.  Characters  are 
there,  of  course,  but  they  are  not  in  the  foreground ;  it  is  what 
they  do  rather  than  what  they  are,  that  interests  us.  Quite 
the  opposite  is  true  of  the  second  kind  of  short-story.  In  it, 
one  single  preeminent  character  dominates  the  action.  Other 
characters  are  in  the  story  to  present  him  with  opportunity  for 
action  or  to  throw  light  in  some  way  upon  his  temperament, 
disposition,  and  all  the  rest  which  aid  in  making  up  his  character. 
The  story  in  such  case  is  secondary ;  it  is  useful  primarily  only 
as  it  provides  a  framework  for  the  portrayal  of  the  character. 
The  setting  is  useful  in  such  a  story  in  so  far  as  it  lends  tone  and 
color  to  the  portrayal.  In  the  third  kind  of  short-story,  the 
setting  determines  the  nature  of  the  story.  A  bleak,  poverty- 
stricken  part  of  a  great  city  suggests  and  makes  a  story  of 
hardship  and  toil  or  misery.  An  old  ruin  of  a  castle  overgrown 
with  ivy  suggests  a  story  of  chivalry,  war,  and  perhaps  love, 


388  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

Often  the  writer  causes  the  scene  to  serve  as  a  contrast  for  the 
sake  of  vividness  of  impression ;  but  in  that  case  the  story  is 
likely  to  turn  out  one  of  action  or  of  character.  A  fourth  kind 
of  short-story  is  the  story  of  idea.  The  idea  is  a  generaliza- 
tion from  the  writer's  experience  of  life.  He  wishes  to  SQt  forth 
this  idea ;  therefore  he  invents  plot,  characters,  and  setting. 
Edward  Everett  Hale,  for  instance,  was  impressed  with  the 
idea  of  a  man  cut  off  from  all  national  relationships,  and  he 
wrote  the  story  of  The  Man  Without  a  Country. 

The  best  writers  usually  begin  their  short-stories  with  the  con- 
ception of  a  character.  A  real,  live  character  is  pretty  certain  to 
get  himself  or  to  be  gotten  into  critical  situations  of  some  sorts, 
and  when  he  does  he  is  sure  to  find  a  stage  for  action  and  to  see 
that  something  happens.  The  beginner  in  the  craft  of  short- 
story  writing  often  mistakes  the  best  method  of  getting  under 
way,  because  he  insists  that  he  must  first  concoct  a  plot.  He 
should  imagine  a  vital  character  first,  and  action  will  follow. 
What  the  writer  then  has  left  to  do  is  to  select  and  reject  from 
that  action,  and  then  he  may  arrange  in  climactic  order  what  the 
character  does  or  what  is  done  to  him,  —  and  the  plot  is  the 
result. 

Singleness  of  purpose.  —  The  most  important  thing  to  keep 
in  mind  in  the  study  of  the  short-story  is  the  oneness  of  aim. 
Nothing  must  hinder,  nothing  detract  from  the  single,  clear 
purpose.  Strength  and  effectiveness  are  dependent  upon  the 
elimination  of  whatever  is  not  germane  to  the  purpose.  A  well- 
written  short-story  never  contains  an  "  episode,"  that  is,  it 
never  contains  any  incident  which  could  be  taken  out  of  the 
story  and  told  for  that  incident's  own  sake  without  lessening  the 
value  of  the  short-story  and  of  the  incident  itself.  The  good 
short-story  must  contain  nothing  that  does  not  advance  the 
characters  to  the  one  goal  of  the  action  of  the  story. 


THE   CHIEF  TYPES  OF  LITERATURE 


389 


Short-stories  for  study.  —  Modern  magazines  are  constantly 
seeking  for  good  short-stories,  but  they  come  to  our  tables  filled 
with  stories,  good,  bad,  and  indifferent.  How  shall  we  sift  the 
wheat  from  the  chaff  ?  By  the  application  of  principles  learned 
in  the  study  of  short-stories  of  acknowledged  literary  value, 
and  by  practice  in  the  culling  of  the  good  from  the  bad  in  the 
current  magazines.  The  following  short-stories  are,  among 
many  others,  worthy  of  close  study : 


The  Man  Without  a  Country ^ 

The  Luck  of  Roaring  Camp, 

The  Great  Stone  Face, 

The  Gold  Bug, 

The  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher j 

The  Lady,  or  the  Tiger, 

The  Legend  of  Sleepy  Hollow, 

Rip  Van  Winkle, 

Marse  Chan, 

Marjorie  Daw, 

The  Revolt  of  Mother, 

A  New  England  Nun, 

A  Perfect  Tribute, 

Pigs  is  Pigs, 

The  Man  Who  Was, 

■007, 

Markheim, 

The  Sire  de  Maletroit's  Door, 

A  Municipal  Report, 

The  Third  Ingredient, 

The  Whirligig  of  Life, 

Little  French  Masterpieces, 

Little  French  Masterpieces, 

Loveliness, 

King  Solomon  of  Kentucky, 

The  Game  and  the  Nation, 

The  Return  of  a  Private, 

The  Happiest  Day  of  His  Life, 


Hale. 

Harte. 

Hawthorne. 

Poe. 

Poe. 

Stockton. 

Irving. , 

Irving, 

Page. 

Aldrich. 

Wilkins- Freeman. 

Wilkins-Freeman. 

Andrews. 

Butler. 

Kipling. 

Kipling. 

Stevenson. 

Stevenson.      < 

O.  Henry 

O.  Henry. 

O.  Henry 

Maupassant. 

Daudet. 

Phelps. 

Allen. 

Wister. 

Garland. 

Osbourne. 


390  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

KINDS  OF  SHORT-STORIES 

Humorous  Stories 

The  Jumping-Frog,  Mark  Twain. 

The  Third  Ingredient,  O.  Henry, 

The  Pope's  Mule,  A.  Daudet. 

Pigs  is  Pigs,  Ellis  Parker  Butler. 

The  Love-Letters  of  Smith,  H.  C.  Bunner. 

The  Courting  of  Dinah  Shadd,  Rudyard  Kipling. 

Stories  of  Character 

Tennessee's  Partner,  Bret  Harte. 

Brooksmith,  Henry  James. 

King  Solomon  of  Kentucky,  James  Lane  Allen. 

A  Lodging  for  the  Night,  R.  L,  Stevenson. 

Tchelkache,  Maxim  Gorki. 

Quite  So,  T.  B.  Aldrich. 

The  Marquis,  J.  H.  Shorthouse. 

Rab  and  his  Friends,  Dr.  John  Brown. 
The  Incarnation  of  Krishna  Mulvaney,        Rudyard  Kipling. 

Stories  or  Ingenuity 

The  Lady  or  the  Tiger,  •  Frank  R.  Stockton. 

The  Gold-Bug,  Edgar  Allan  Poe. 

The  Struggle  for  Life,  T.  B.  Aldrich. 

The  Diamond  Lens,  Fitz- James  O'Brien. 

Stories  of  Romantic  Adventure 

The  Man  Who  Would  Be  King,  Rudyard  Kipling. 

The  Sire  de  Maletroit's  Door,  R.  L.  Stevenson. 

The  Honorable  Mr.  Tawnish,  Jeffery  Farnol. 

Love  Stories 

The  Brushwood  Boy,  Rudyard  Kipling. 

Who  Was  She?  Bayard  Taylor. 

Marjorie  Daw,  T.  B.  Aldrich. 

The  Creamery  Matt,  Hamlin  Garland. 


THE   CHIEF  TYPES  OF  LITERATURE 


391 


Psychological  Stories 
The  Hollow  of  the  Three  Hills,  Nathaniel  Hawthorne. 


They, 

A  Coward, 

The  Real  Thing, 


Rudyard  Kiphng. 
Guy  de  Maupassant. 
Henry  James. 


Stories  of  Terror  and  the  Supernatural 


The  Merry  Men, 

Ethan  Brand, 

The  Birth-mark, 

Rappacini's  Daughter, 

The  Horla, 

The  Masque  of  the  Red  Death, 

Ligeia, 

The  Upper  Berth, 

The  Real  Right  Thing, 

The  House  and  the  Brain, 

The  Bottle-Imp, 

At  the  End  of  the  Passage, 


R.  L.  Stevenson. 
Nathaniel  Hawthorne. 
Nathaniel  Hawthorne. 
Nathaniel  Hawthorne. 
Guy  de  Maupassant. 
Edgar  Allan  Poe. 
Edgar  Allan  Poe. 
F.  Marion  Crawford. 
Henry  James. 
Bulwer  Lytton. 
R.  L.  Stevenson. 
Rudyard  Kipling. 


Stories  Finely  Illustrating  Dramatic  Method 

The  Outcasts  of  Poker  Flat,  Bret  Harte. 

Le  Grande  Breteche,  H.  Balzac. 

Without  Benefit  of  Clergy,  Rudyard  Ripling. 

The  Three  Strangers,  Thomas  Hardy. 

A  Lear  of  the  Steppes,  Ivan  Turgenev. 

The  Pit  and  the  Pendulum,  Edgar  Allan  Poe. 

The  Shot,  Alexander  Poushkin. 


Local-color 

The  Game  and  the  Nation, 

A  Rose  of  the  Ghetto, 

A  New  England  Nun, 

Up  the  Coulee, 

The  Rose  of  Dixie. 

The  Madonna  of  the  Peach-Tree, 

An  Habitation  Enforced, 

The  Luck  of  Roaring  Camp, 


Stories 

Owen  Wister. 

Israel  Zangwill. 

Mary  E.  Wilkins- Freeman. 

Hamlin  Garland. 

O.  Henry. 

Maurice  Hewlett. 

Rudyard  Kipling. 

Bret  Harte. 


392  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

SxoiRIES  Of  AND   FOR   CHILDREN 

Loveliness,  Elizabeth  Stuart  Phelps  Ward. 

A  Dog  of  Flanders,  Ouida  (Louise  de  la  Ram6e). 

Wee  Willie  Winkie,  Rudyard  Kipling. 

The  Jungle-Book,  Rudyard  Kipling, 

The  Pope  is  Dead,  A.  Daudet. 

The  Fairy  Poodle,  Leonard  Merrick. 

Emmy  Lou:  Her  Book  and  Heart,  George  Madden  Martin. 

Little  Citizens,  Myra  Kelly, 

Uncle  Remus*  Stories,  Joel  Chandler  Harris. 

The  Golden  Age,  Kenneth  Grahame, 

The  Wind  in  the  Willows,  Kenneth  Grahame. 

The  Children's  Book  of  Thanksgiving 

Stories,  Asa  Don  Dickinson. 

Fairy  Stories 

The  Little  Lame  Prince,  Miss  Mulock. 

The  Happy  Prince,  Oscar  Wilde. 

The  King  of  the  Golden  River,  John  Ruskin. 

The  Steadfast  Tin  Soldier,  Hans  C,  Andersen. 

The  Story  of  Claus,  Eugene  Field. 

The  Gradual  Fairy,  Alice  Brown. 

COLLECTIONS  OF  SHORT-STORIES 
American   Short   Stories.     Edited   by    Charles    S.    Baldwin.     (Longmans, 

Green  &  Co,) 
The  Book  of  the  Short  Story.    Edited  by  A.  Jessup  and  H.  S.  Canby.     (D. 

Appleton  &  Co.) 
Modern  Masterpieces  of  Short  Prose  Fiction.     Edited  by  Alice  V.  Waite  and 

Edith  M.  Taylor,     (D,  Appleton  &  Co,) 
Types  of  the  Short  Story.     Edited  by  Benjamin  A.  Heydrick.      (Scott,  Fores- 
man  &  Co.) 
Stories  New  and  Old.    Edited  by  Hamilton  W.  Mabie.     (The  Macmillan 

Company.) 
The  World's  Greatest  Short  Stories.     Edited   by  Sherwin    Cody.     (A.    C. 

McClurg  &  Co.) 
A  Collection  of  Short  Stories.    Edited  by  L.  A,  Pittenger.     (The  Macmillan 

Company.) 


THE   CHIEF  TYPES  OF  LITERATURE  393 

Representative  Sliorl  Stories.  Edited  by  Edna  Perry  and  Nina  Hart,  (The 
Macmillan  Company.) 

Specimens  of  the  Short-Story.  Edited  by  G.  H.  Nettleton.   (Henry  Holt  &  Co.) 

Little  French  Masterpieces.  Edited  by  Alexander  Jessup.  (G.  P.  Putnam's 
Sons.) 

The  Short-Story.  Edited  by  Brander  Matthews.  (American  Book  Com- 
pany.) 

Modern  Short-Stories.  Edited  by  Margaret  Ashmun.  (The  Macmillan 
Company.) 

BOOKS    THAT   WILL    AID    IN   THE    STUDY    OF   THE  SHORT- 
STORY 

The  Short  Story,  Its  Principles  and  Structure,  Evelyn  M.  Albright.      (The 

Macmillan  Company.) 
Short-Story  Writing,  C.  R.  Barrett.     (Baker  &  Taylor.) 
The  Short  Story  in  English,  H.  S.  Canby.     (Henry  Holt  &  Co.) 
Writing  the  Short  Story,  J.  B.  Esenwein.     (Hinds,  Noble  &  Eldredge.) 
The  Art  of  the  Short  Story,  G.  W.  Gerwig.     (The  Werner  Company.) 
The  Art  of  the  Short  Story,  Carl  H.  Grabo.     (Charles  Scribner's  Sons.) 
The  Philosophy  of  the  Short-Story,  Brander  Matthews.     (Longmans,  Green 

&Co.) 
The  Art  and  the  Business  of  Short-Story  Writing,  W.  B.  Pitkin.     (The  Mac- 
millan Company.) 
The  Plot,  H.  A.  Phillips.     (The  Editor  Publishing  Company.) 

QUESTIONS 

Does  the  author  show  a  clear-cut  purpose  when  he  begins  to  write  or  does 
it  appear  later  ?     If  the  latter,  where  in  the  story  ? 

What  is  the  author's  purpose? 

Does  he  carry  it  out? 

Is  there  anything  in  the  story  which  hinders  or  detracts? 

Is  the  theme  suited  to  the  short-story,  or  would  it  be  better  for  a  novel- 
ette? 

Could  it  be  handled  better  in  a  novel  or  a  play?     If  so,  why? 

Is  this  short-story  a  real  one,  or  is  it  simply  a  condensed  novel  ? 

What  is  the  theme? 

Outline  the  plot. 

What  kind  of  short-story  is  it? 


394  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

Give  reasons  for  your  classification  ? 

If  it  is  a  story  of  character,  what  relations  to  the  characters  have  the  plot 
and  the  setting? 

Could  you  include  the  action  under  the  formula  "Impulse,  deed,  con- 
sequence "  ?     Under  "  Enmeshment  and  escape  "  ? 

Find  stories  of  each  of  the  four  kinds  suggested  on  page  387. 

Find  stories  of  each  of  the  ten  kinds  on  pages  391,  392. 

What  is  the  difference  between  the  set  of  four  kinds  and  that  of  ten? 

What  is  the  best  short-story  you  have  ever  read  and  why  is  it  the  best? 

Who  wrote  it? 

Where  was  it  published  ? 

What  kind  of  story  can  you  write  best? 

What,  in  your  opinion,  is  the  best  brief  story  in  verse? 

What  illustrator  of  short-stories  is  your  favorite  ?    Why  ? 

Read  a  half  dozen  novelettes.  What  distinguishes  a  novelette  from  a 
short-story  ? 

VII.  Criticism 

While  Criticism  can  hardly  be  said  to  be  a  type  of  literature 
all  by  itself,  for  it  nearly  always  can  easily  be  classified  under 
the  Essay,  yet  since  the  student  of  literature  is  constantly 
being  asked  to  express  an  opinion,  or  make  an  estimate,  or 
pass  judgment  upon  what  he  has  read,  it  seems  best  to  have 
a  separate  section  upon  Criticism.  Some  one  has  described 
Criticism  as  '*  the  soul's  adventure  among  masterpieces." 
Matthew  Arnold  wrote  a  definition  of  Criticism  to  the  effect 
that  it  is  the  endeavor  to  learn  and  to  teach  others  all  that 
is  best  among  the  things  known  and  the  things  that  have 
been  and  are  being  thought  in  the  world  and  thus  to  make  fresh 
and  true  ideas  popular  and  forceful. 

The  common  idea  of  criticizing,  that  it  is  **  fault-finding,"  is 
not  a  correct  idea.  John  Dryden  pointed  this  out  plainly 
when  he  said,  "  I  must  take  leave  to  tell  them  that  they  wholly 
mistake  the  nature  of  criticism  who  think  its  business  is  prin- 


THE   CHIEF  TYPES   OF  LITERATURE  395 

cipally  to  find  fault.  Criticism,  as  it  was  first  instituted  by 
Aristotle,  was  meant  as  a  standard  of  judging  well ;  the  chief  est 
part  of  which  is,  to  observe  those  excellencies  which  should 
delight  a  reasonable  reader."  Of  course  if  what  is  read  contains 
few  "  excellencies,"  or  more  faults  than  excellent  qualities,  then 
Criticism  must  be  adverse,  —  it  must  find  and  state  the  faults. 

Criticism  does  not  consist  merely  in  stating  one's  spontaneous 
impression,  or  what  one  merely  feels  or  thinks  offhand.  A 
critical  estimate  of  a  piece  of  writing  is  a  judgment  upon  that 
writing,  not  a  hasty  impression.  It  is  a  judgment  based  upon 
comparisons  between  that  which  has  proved  itself  to  be  worth 
while  and  that  which  is  now  before  one  for  critical  opinion. 

Coleridge  said  that  the  critic  should  ask  three  questions 
when  reading :  (i)  What  has  the  writer  done?  (2)  How  has  he 
done  it?  (3)  Was  it  worth  while  doing?  No  doubt  all  the 
other  questions  that  one  needs  to  ask  could  be  grouped  under 
these  three  general  questions.  It  is  worth  while  for  you  to  ask 
these  three  of  the  next  book  you  read. 

Others  have  said  that  all  critical  questions  can  be  grouped 
about  (i)  the  subject  matter,  and  (2)  the  manner  of  writing  it, 
and  (3)  the  man  who  did  the  writing.     And  so  they  can. 

Still  others  have  said  that  if  the  critic  finds  out  (i)  the  purpose 
of  the  writer,  and  then  (2)  the  effect  achieved  upon  the  reader, 
and  then  (3)  compares  purpose  with  effect,  he  will  have  accom- 
plished the  whole  task  of  criticism. 

Rudyard  Kipling  has  written  some  famous  lines  in  which  he 
says  that  the  story-teller  is  served  by  six  honest  serving-men. 
What  and  Why  and  When  and  How  and  Where  and  Who.  If 
one  applied  these  questions  to  the  story  which  he  is  reading,  he 
would  be  asking  about  (i)  the  nature  of  the  subject  matter, 
(2)  the  purpose  of  the  author,  (3)  the  circumstances  of  {a)  time 
and  {h)  place  in  which  the  writing  was  done  and  {c)  the  setting 


396  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

of  the  story,  and,  finally,  (4)  both  concerning  (a)  the  character 
of  the  author  and  (b)  the  characters  in  the  story. 

A  critic  may  confine  himself  to  only  two  questions  even,  and 
yet  get  very  far  into  the  heart  of  the  business,  —  the  two  ques- 
tions (i)  Is  the  message  conveyed  by  the  author  sane  and  valu- 
able for  human  life?  and  (2)  Is  the  art  or  workmanship  with 
which  the  writer  has  produced  the  message  fine  workmanship? 

Another  way  to  criticize  is  this :  Begin  by  inquiring  (i)  what 
the  purpose  of  the  author  was ;  whether,  for  example,  it  was  to 
entertain  merely,  or  to  instruct.  Inquiring  about  the  purpose 
will  quickly  lead  one  to  inquiring  (2)  about  the  man  and  the 
circumstances  under  which  he  wrote.  One  may,  with  a  fair 
degree  of  accuracy,  simply  by  asking  critical  questions,  deter- 
mine the  period  in  history  in  which  a  work  has  been  written. 
He  can  even  determine  whether  the  work  is  modern  or  not  by 
applying  the  most  general  tests.  If  a  work  of  literature  is  dis- 
tinguished for  all  four  of  the  following  qualities,  beauty,  direct- 
ness, freedom  of  thought,  and  many-sidedness,  it  is  not  ancient 
nor  medieval ;  it  is  modern,  in  spirit,  even  if  not  in  precise  date. 
A  reader  should  know  considerable  about  the  time  in  which  the 
writer  lived,  if  the  reader  desires  to  understand  the  book  fully. 
Matthew  Arnold  says,  "  For  the  creation  of  a  master-work  of 
literature  two  powers  must  concur,  the  power  of  man  and  the 
power  of  moment."  Then  (3)  it  is  a  good  plan  to  consider  the 
subject  matter,  inquiring  whether  it  is  actually  true,  or  fanciful 
merely,  or  true  to  principles  if  not  to  actual  facts.  This,  of 
course,  involves  (4)  a  study  of  the  kind  of  discourse  to  which  the 
writing  belongs,  whether  it  is  a  story,  or  a  description,  or  an 
explanation,  or  an  argument.  Then  (5)  it  is  well  to  examine  the 
structure  of  the  writing  being  criticized.  If  it  is,  for  example,  a 
drama,  or  a  short-story,  or  a  sonnet,  how  well  does  it  conform 
to  the  best  approved  methods  of  writing  drama,  or  short-story, 


THE   CHIEF  TYPES  OF  LITERATURE  •  397 

or  sonnet  ?  Then  (6)  the  study  can  proceed  to  the  examination 
of  the  diction,  or  the  choice  and  apt  use  of  the  words  employed. 
Then  (7),  finally,  one  may  well  ask  what  permanent  impression 
the  work  is  likely  to  leave,  —  what,  after  all,  is  to  be  the  effect 
upon  the  world  of  this  which  claims  to  be  a  literary  product  ? 

Let  us  be  more  direct  for  a  moment,  and  say  that  if  one  is  to 
criticize  a  printed  play,  for  example,  he  may  do  his  best  critical 
work  if  he  asks  and  answers  such  questions  as  these : 

(i)  What  is  the  degree  of  mastery  over  dialogue  in  the  play? 

(2)  What  is  the  degree  of  mastery  of  character  portrayal? 

(3)  How  well  does  the  author  master  the  setting? 

(4)  Is  he  in  this  drama  a  master  of  romantic  inventions  or 

of  realistic  events? 

(5)  Has  the  author  shown  here  the  unfailing  instinct  for  the 

dramatic  which  only  the  master  playwright  can  have? 
You  see,  the  creation  of  a  masterpiece  can  be  accomplished  only 
by  a  master  craftsman,  and  all  literature  must  be  judged  finally 
by  comparison  with  what  a  master  has  done  or  may  be  expected 
to  do. 

We  have  suggested  all  these  various  ways  of  approach  in 
criticism  because  there  is  no  one  way  which  is  the  sure  way  of 
criticizing.  If,  as  Kipling  says,  there  are  five  and  sixty  ways  of 
constructing  tribal  lays  and  every  single  one  of  them  is  right, 
then  the  critic  must  have  five  and  sixty  ways  of  criticizing  tribal 
lays,  for  criticism  is  simply  asking  "  Is  it  right?  " 

BOOKS    THAT    WILL    AID    THE    STUDENT    TO    BE    A  GOOD 

CRITIC 

What  Can  Literature  Do  for  Me?  C.  Alphonso  Smith.     (Doubleday,  Page  & 

Co.) 
Judgment  in  Literature,  Basil  Worsfold.     (J.  M,  Dent  &  Co.) 
Literary  Taste:   How  to  Form  It,  Arnold  Bennett.      (George   H.  Doran 

Company.) 


398 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE 


Wordsworth's  Literary  Criticism.     Edited  by  Nowell  C.  Smith.      (Frowde.) 
Elementary  Guide  to  Literary  Criticism,  F.  V.  N.  Painter,     (Ginn  &  Co.) 
Greatness  in  Literature,  W.  P.  Trent.     (Thomas  Y.  Crowell  &  Co.) 
The  Function  of  Criticism  at  the  Present  Time,  Matthew  Arnold.     (The  Mac- 

millan  Company.) 
Principles  of  Literary  Criticisim.      C.  T.  Winchester.     (The  Macmillan 

Company.) 


Ben  Jonson, 
G.  H.  Lewes, 
Arthur  Schopenhauer, 
Herbert  Spencer, 
Richard  Whately, 
Henry  D.  Thoreau, 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson, 

Walter  Pater, 
Frederic  Harrison, 
Barrett  Wendell, 
Arlo  Bates, 

Frederick  T.  Cooper, 


ESSAYS  ON  STYLE 

Timber. 

The  Principles  of  Success  in  Literature. 

Essay  on  ^^ Style." 

Philosophy  of  Style. 

Elements  of  Rhetoric,  Part  III. 

Pages  130-137  of  "A  Week  on  the  Concord 
and  Merrimack  Rivers." 

On  Some  Technical  Elements  of  Style  in  Litera- 
ture. 

Essay  on  "Style." 

On  English  Prose. 

English  Composition. 

"Talks  on  Writing  English,"  First  Series,— 
Ijist  Chapter. 

'The  Craftsmanship  of  Writing "  — CAa/>- 
Ur  VII. 


VIII.  Letters 

"  The  stile  of  letters  ought  to  be  free,  easy,  and  natural ;  as 
near  approaching  to  familiar  conversation  as  possible :  the  two 
best  qualities  in  conversation  are,  good  humour  and  good  breed- 
ing ;  those  letters  are  therefore  certainly  the  best  that  show  the 
most  of  these  two  qualities,"  said  an  old-fashioned  master  of 
literature.  Students  of  the  high  school  age  have  already  been 
taught  the  form  of  letter-writing.  They  have  already  had 
practice  in  this  kind  of  personal  communication,  outside  of  the 


THE   CHIEF  TYPES   OF  LITERATURE  399 

schools.  Most  of  them  begin  to  realize  that  it  is  not  likely 
that  there  will  be  any  other  form  of  literature  in  which  op- 
portunity may  come  for  them  to  show  themselves  masters  of 
the  craft  of  authorship.  Few  do  not  already  know  that  a  good- 
humored  letter  will  achieve  results  more  quickly  and  more  effi- 
ciently than  will  a  letter  that  is  ill-humored.  But  not  very 
many  appreciate  that,  even  in  the  business  world,  nearly  all  great 
success  in  correspondence  is  due  to  a  combination  of  good  humor 
and  good  breeding.  The  correspondence  of  a  great  business 
house  reveals  the  touch  of  fine  art  in  almost  every  letter  sent 
from  its  offices.  Cultured  minds  with  keen  business  sense  are 
in  high  demand  in  the  world  of  business.  As  the  means  of 
communication  become  more  numerous  and  rapid  and  the 
ramifications  of  business  become  more  far-reaching  and  com- 
plex, the  demand  for  educated  correspondents  will  become 
larger  and  more  insistent.  While  the  subject  matter  of  the 
letters  of  poets,  essayists,  and  novelists  is  not  much  akin  to  the 
subject  matter  which  fills  the  files  of  a  business  concern,  yet  a 
mastery  of  the  tone  and  spirit  of  the  correspondence  of  "  men 
of  letters  "  goes  far  towards  making  of  business  correspon- 
dence a  success.  Among  the  best  collections  of  letters  are  the 
four  following : 

Selected  English  Letters.    Edited  by  Claude  M.  Fuess.     (Houghton  Mifflin 

Company.) 
Specimens  of  Letter-Writing.    Edited  by  Laura  E.  Lockwood  and  Amy  R. 

Kelly.     (Henry  Holt  &  Co.) 
The  Gentlest  Art.    Edited  by  E.  V.  Lucas.     (The  Macmillan  Company.) 
Letters  from  Many  Pens.     Edited  by  Margaret  Coult.     (The  Macmillan 

Company.) 

The  few  letters  here  printed  are  interesting  for  their  variety, 
and  will  serve  to  suggest  that  occasion  demands  a  varying  tone, 
as  well  as  to  suggest  that  personality  of  the  writer  shows  itself 
very  plainly  in  this  form  of  writing. 


400  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

Abraham  Lincoln  to  Mrs.  Bixhy 

Executive  Mansion,  Washington, 
November  21,  1864. 
Mrs.  Bixby, 

Boston,  Massachusetts. 
Dear  Mai5am  :  I  have  been  shown  in  the  files  of  the  War 
Department  a  statement  of  the  Adjutant-General  of  Massa- 
chusetts that  you  are  the  mother  of  five  sons  who  have  died 
gloriously  on  the  field  of  battle.  I  feel  how  weak  and  fruitless 
must  be  any  words  of  mine  which  should  attempt  to  beguile 
you  from  the  grief  of  a  loss  so  overwhelming.  But  I  cannot  re- 
frain from  tendering  to  you  the  consolation  that  may  be  found 
in  the  thanks  of  the  Republic  they  died  to  save.  I  pray  that 
our  heavenly  Father  may  assuage  the  anguish  of  your  bereave- 
ment, and  leave  you  only  the  cherished  memory  of  the  loved 
and  lost,  and  the  solemn  pride  that  must  be  yours  to  have  laid 
so  costly  a  sacrifice  upon  the  altar  of  freedom. 

Yours  very  sincerely  and  respectfully, 
Abraham  Lincoln. 

Dr,  Samtiel  Johnson  to  Lord  Chesterfield 

Feb.  7,  175s. 
My  Lord, 

I  have  been  lately  informed  by  the  proprietor  of  The  World 
that  two  papers,  in  which  my  Dictionary  is  recommended  to 
the  public,  were  written  by  your  lordship.  To  be  so  distin- 
guished, is  an  honour  which,  being  very  little  accustomed  to 
favours  from  the  great,  I  know  not  well  how  to  receive  or  in 
what  terms  to  acknowledge. 

When,  upon  some  slight  encouragement,  I  first  visited  your 
lordship,  I  was  over-powered,  like  the  rest  of  mankind,  by  the 


THE   CHIEF  TYPES  OF  LITERATURE  401 

enchantment  of  your  address,  and  could  not  forbear  to  wish  that 
I  might  boast  myself  Le  vainqueur  du  vainqueur  de  la  terre  that 
I  might  obtain  that  regard  for  which  I  saw  the  world  contending ; 
but  I  found  my  attendance  so  little  encouraged,  that  neither 
pride  nor  modesty  would  suffer  me  to  continue  it.  When  I 
had  once  addressed  your  lordship  in  public,  I  had  exhausted 
all  the  art  of  pleasing  which  a  retired  and  uncourtly  scholar  can 
possess.  I  had  done  all  that  I  could;  and  no  man  is  well 
pleased  to  have  his  all  neglected,  be  it  ever  so  little. 

Seven  years,  my  Lord,  have  now  past,  since  I  waited  in  your 
outward  rooms,  or  was  repulsed  from  your  door ;  during  which 
time  I  have  been  pushing  on  my  work  through  difficulties,  of 
which  it  is  useless  to  complain,  and  have  brought  it,  at  last,  to 
the  verge  of  publication,  without  one  act  of  assistance,  one  word 
of  encouragement,  or  one  smile  of  favour.  Such  treatment  I 
did  not  expect,  for  I  never  had  a  Patron  before.  The  shepherd 
in  Virgil  grew  at  last  acquainted  with  Love,  and  found  him  a 
native  of  the  rocks. 

Is  not  a  Patron,  my  Lord,  one  who  looks  with  unconcern  on 
a  man  struggling  for  life  in  the  water,  and,  when  he  has  reached 
ground,  encumbers  him  with  help  ?  The  notice  which  you  have 
been  pleased  to  take  of  my  labours,  had  it  been  early,  had  been 
kind ;  but  it  has  been  delayed  till  I  am  indifferent,  and  cannot 
enjoy  it;  till  I  am  solitary,  and  cannot  impart  it;  till  I  am 
known,  and  do  not  want  it.  I  hope  it  is  no  very  cynical  asperity 
not  to  confess  obligations  where  no  benefit  has  been  received, 
or  to  be  unwilling  that  the  publick  should  consider  me  as  owing 
that  to  a  Patron  which  Providence  has  enabled  me  to  do  for 
myself. 

Having  carried  on  my  work  thus  far  with  so  little  obligation 
to  any  favourer  of  learning,  I  shall  not  be  disappointed  though  I 
should  conclude  it,  if  less  be  possible,  with  less ;  for  I  have  been 


402  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

long  wakened  from  that  dream  of  hope  in  which  I  once  boasted 
myself  with  so  much  exultation. 

My  Lord 
Your  Lordship's  most  humble 

most  obedient  servant 
Sam.  Johnson. 

Charles  Lamb  to  William  Wordsworth 

CoLEBROOK  Cottage,  April  6,  1825. 
Dear  Wordsworth  — 

I  have  been  several  times  meditating  a  letter  to  you  concerning 
the  good  thing  which  has  befallen  me,  but  the  thought  of  poor 
Monkhouse  came  across  me.  He  was  one  that  I  had  exulted 
in  the  prospect  of  congratulating  me.  He  and  you  were  to 
have  been  the  first  participators,  for  indeed  it  has  been  ten  weeks 
since  the  first  motion  of  it.  Here  I  am  then,  after  thirty  years' 
slavery,  sitting  in  my  own  room  at  eleven  o'clock  this  finest  of 
all  April  mornings,  a  freed  man,  with  44i£  a  year  for  the  re- 
mainder of  my  life,  live  I  as  long  as  John  Dennis,  who  outlived 
his  annuity  and  starved  at  ninety ;  44i£,  i.e.^  45o£,  with  a  de- 
duction of  g£  for  a  provision  secured  to  my  sister,  she  being  sur- 
vivor, the  pension  guaranteed  by  Act  Georgii  Tertii,  etc. 

•I  came  home  For  Ever  on  Tuesday  in  last  week.  The 
incomprehensibleness  of  my  condition  overwhelmed  me.  It 
was  like  passing  from  life  into  eternity.  Every  year  to  be  as 
long  as  three,  i.e.,  to  have  three  times  as  much  real  time  (time 
that  is  my  own)  in  it?  I  wandered  about  thinking  I  was 
happy,  but  feeling  I  was  not.  But  that  tumultuousness  is  a- 
passing  off,  and  I  begin  to  understand  the  nature  of  the  gift. 
Holy-days,  even  the  annual  month,  were  always  uneasy  joys ; 
their  conscious  f ugitiveness ;  the  craving  after  making  the  most 


THE   CHIEF  TYPES   OF  LITERATURE  403 

of  them.  Now,  when  all  is  holyday,  there  are  no  holydays.  I 
can  sit  at  home,  in  rain  or  shine,  without  a  restless  impulse  for 
walkings.  I  am  daily  steadying,  and  shall  soon  find  it  as  natural 
to  me  to  be  my  own  master,  as  it  has  been  irksome  to  have  had  a 
master.  Mary  wakes  every  morning  with  an  obscure  feeling 
that  some  good  has  happened  to  us. 

Leigh  Hunt  and  Montgomery  after  their  releasements,  de- 
scribe the  shock  of  their  emancipation  much  as  I  feel  mine.  But 
it  hurt  their  frames.  I  eat,  drink,  and  sleep  as  sound  as  ever. 
I  lay  no  anxious  schemes  for  going  hither  and  thither,  but  take 
things  as  they  occur.  Yesterday  I  excursioned  twenty  miles; 
to-day  I  write  a  few  letters.  Pleasuring  was  for  fugitive  play- 
days  ;  mine-  are  fugitive  only  in  the  sense  that  life  is  fugitive. 
Freedom  and  life  are  co-existent?  ... 

C.  Lamb. 

Mr.  Micawber  to  David  Copperfield 

My  dear  Young  Friend,  —  The  die  is  cast  —  all  is  over. 
Hiding  the  ravages  of  care  with  a  sickly  mask  of  mirth,  I  have 
not  informed  you,  this  evening,  that  there  is  no  hope  of  a  remit- 
tance !  Under  these  circumstances,  alike  humihating  to  endure, 
humiliating  to  contemplate,  and  humiliating  to  relate,  I  have  dis- 
charged the  pecuniary  Uabihty  contracted  at  this  establishment, 
by  giving  a  note  of  hand,  made  payable  fourteen  days  after  date, 
at  my  residence,  Pentonville,  London.  When  it  becomes  due,  it 
will  not  be  taken  up.  The  result  is  destruction.  The  bolt  is 
impending,  and  the  tree  must  fall. 

Let  the  wretched  man  who  now  addresses  you,  my  dear 
Copperfield,  be  a  beacon  to  you  through  life.  He  writes  with 
that  intention,  and  in  that  hope.  If  he  could  think  himself  of 
so  much  use,  one  gleam  of  day  might,  by  possibihty,  penetrate 
into  the  cheerless  dungeon  of  his  remaining  existence  —  though 


404  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

his  longevity  is,  at  present  (to  say  the  least  of  it),  extremely 
problematical. 

This  is  the  last  communication,  my  dear  Copperfield,  you 
will  ever  receive  from  the  beggared  outcast, 

WiLKINS   MiCAWBER. 


TOPICS  FOR  ADVANCED  STUDY 

1.  Consult  the  article  on  "  Laureate  "  in  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica 
for  the  names  of  writers  who  have  held  the  office  of  poet  laureate.  Find 
from  the  Century  Dictionary  of  Names  the  chief  facts  recorded  there  concern- 
ing each  of  the  laureates. 

2.  Examine  the  latest  edition  of  the  Literary  Year  Book  for  the  names  of 
those  who  have  won  the  Nobel  Prize  for  Literature.  Prepare  brief  sketches 
of  the  prize-winners,  with  especial  attention  to  \yhat  each  has  written. 

3.  In  the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography  find  the  biographies  of  four 
novelists  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Summarize  each  of  them;  then  tell 
which  you  think  the  most  interesting,  with  your  reasons  for  so  thinking. 

4.  Investigate  ^he  biographies  of  several,  at  least  ten,  nineteenth- 
century  English  men  of  letters.  Then  discuss  this  question,  —  Are  men  of 
letters  notable  for  much  excepting  the  production  of  literature  ? 

5.  Look  up  the  friendships  among  literary  men, —  for  example,  of  Tenny- 
son and  Hallam,  of  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge,  of  those  in  the  "Pre- 
Raphaelite  Brotherhood." 

6.  Make  a  list  of  the  poets  and  another  of  the  prose-writers  of  each  of 
the  periods  in  the  history  of  English  literature.  Then  estimate  which  you 
think  is  the  most  important  list  for  each  period. 

7.  Compare  and  contrast  Whittier  and  Burns,  Cooper  and  Scott,  Emer- 
son and  Carlyle,  Hawthorne  and  Stevenson. 

8.  Read  the  accounts  of  the  visits  of  English  literary  men  to  America,  — 
of  Dickens,  Thackeray,  Matthew  Arnold,  Kipling,  and  others.  What  were 
the  effects? 

9.  Find  all  the  traces  you  can  of  the  history  of  England  upon  the  life  of 
America. 

10.  Trace  the  influence  of  individual  men  of  letters  in  England  upon 
literature  in  America. 

11.  Take  four  of  the  best  English  short-story  writers  and  an  equal  number 


THE   CHIEF  TYPES   OF  LITERATURE  405 

of  the  best  American  short-story  writers,  and  compare  them  in  their  methods 
and  their  subject  matter. 

12.  The  Man  Without  a  Country  and  Rip  Van  Winkle  are  said  to  be 
the  two  most  widely  known  short-stories  both  within  and  without  the 
country  of  America.     Why  are  they  the  most  widely  known? 

13.  Review  the  stories  of  your  favorite  short-story  writer;  then  write 
an  article  estimating  him  from  three  points  of  view,  —  (i)  Veracity,  or  truth 
to  life,  (2)  Catholicity  of  temper,  or  breadth  of  view  concerning  human  life. 
(3)  Faculty  for  story-telling,  or  interesting  by  mere  continuity  and  rela- 
tionship of  incidents. 

14.  What  writers  in  America  have  done  most  in  freeing  the  literature  of 
the  United  States  from  imitation  of  the  literature  of  Europe,  in  each  of  the 
following  periods:  Before  1789;  from  1789  to  181 5;  from  181 5  to  1861; 
from  1861  to  1890;  from  1890  to  1916? 

15.  A  literature  that  is  truly  national  "is  based  on  heroic  achievement, 
or  a  struggle  in  defense  of  an  ideal,  or  to  widen  an  idealistic  conception." 
Has  America  a  truly  national  literature  ? 

16.  Trace  the  influence  of  poets  upon  succeeding  poets,  so  far  as  you 
can  do  so,  in  the  history  of  English  literature. 

17.  Find  all  the  passages  you  can  in  which  poets  have  written  of  other 
poets.     What  is  the  prevailing  general  spirit  of  these  passages  ? 

18.  Classify  the  poems  of  Browning  according  to  their  themes,  such  as 
religion,  love,  music,  painting.     Which  group  appeals  most  to  you  ? 

19.  Search  through  old  English  Ballads  for  "human  interest"  elements 
such  as  are  characteristic  of  the  work  of  modern  newspaper  reporters. 

20.  Find  and  name,  with  the  names  of  their  authors,  all  the  patriotic 
lyrics  you  think  worthy  of  being  memorized  by  a  high  school  freshman. 

21.  Make  a  survey  of  English  poetry  from  any  one  of  the  following  points 
of  view :  the  use  of  the  theme  of  patriotism ;  the  use  of  the  elegiac  form  of 
verse;  the  use  of  different  forms  of  sonnet;  the  description  of  gardens; 
the  description  of  sports.  Stedman's  Anthology  of  American  Poetry  will 
help,  also  his  A  nthology  of  Victorian  Poetry,  Palgrave's  Golden  Treasury,  and 
the  Oxford  Book  of  English  Verse. 

22.  What  claims  has  D.G.  Rossetti's  The  King's  Tragedy  to  being  con- 
sidered the  best  modern  ballad  in  English? 

23.  Which  of  the  following  has  been  the  greatest  cause  for  production 
of  English  literature  —  love  of  wonder,  love  of  story,  love  of  humor?  Give 
concrete  reasons  for  your  opinion. 


4o6  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

24.  What  is  "  Romanticism  "  ?  Consult  the  library  catalogue  under  that 
head.  See  what  distinction  you  can  work  out  between  "Romanticism" 
and  "  Classicism."     Illustrate  freely  by  reference  to  literary  productions. 

25.  What  reasons  can  you  give  for  the  value  of  the  word  "heroicism" 
as  descriptive  of  some  literary  productions?  Be  sure  that  you  base  your 
reasons  upon  concrete  facts. 

26.  Of  one  passage  in  the  eighth  chapter  of  the'third  book  of  Carlyle's 
Sartor  Resartus  it  has  been  said  that  "it  is  perhaps  the  most  memorable 
utterance  of  the  greatest  poet  of  the  age."  Find  the  passage,  state  in  what 
sense  it  is  poetic,  and  give  reasons  for  its  being  a  "memorable  utterance." . 

27.  Why  during  some  periods  of  English  history  has  there  been  an  abun- 
dant production  of  literature,  while  during  other  periods  the  production  has 
been  meager?  Assign  the  causes  to  the  various  periods.  Has  the  history 
of  American  literature  been  so  influenced  ? 

28.  Consider  literature  from  a  tri-dimensional  point  of  view,  that  is  to 
say,  consider  length  (of  popularity),  breadth  (how  wide  an  audience),  and 
depth  (how  much  thought  or  emotion  has  been  stirred),  as  tests  of  the  suc- 
cess of  a  written  product. 

29.  What  were  the  chief  features  of  the  Renaissance  movement,  aside 
from  those  features  which  most  directly  affected  literature? 

30.  Imagine  you  have  had  a  midsummer  night's  dream  in  which  all  your 
favorite  characters  in  Shakespeare's  plays  were  together  in  a  room  into  which 
you  stepped.  Describe  the  appearance  of  each  of  them  and  the  efifects  of 
each  upon  you. 

31.  Compare  the  essays  of  Bacon  with  those  of  Dr.  Johnson  and  of 
Charles  Lamb,  as  revealing  the  personalities  of  the  writers. 

32.  Discuss  the  influence  of  Puritanism  upon  English  literature,  particu- 
larly upon  Milton  and  Bunyan,  looking  chiefly  for  the  differences  between 
these  two  men. 

S3-  Study  the  Puritan  and  his  descendant,  the  New  England  farmer,  in 
the  short-stories  written  by  Hawthorne,  Mrs.  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe,  Mrs. 
Wilkins-Freeman,  Alice  Brown,  and  Sarah  Orne  Jewett. 

34.  Study  the  negro  in  the  American  short-story.  Do  not  overlook  the 
following  writers:  F.  Hopkinson  Smith,  Joel  Chandler  Harris,  Thomas 
Nelson  Page,  James  Lane  Allen,  George  W.  Cable,  O.  Henr>^  E.  A.  Poe, 
Harry  Stillwell  Edwards,  Paul  Laurence  Dunbar,  Maurice  Thompson, 
Sarah  Barnwell  Elliott,  Richard  Malcolm  Johnston,  Charles  Egbert  Crad- 
dock,  John  Fox,  Jr.,  Mrs,  Ruth  McEnery  Stuart. 


THE   CHIEF  TYPES  OF  LITERATURE  407 

35.  Study  the  Indian  in  the  prose  fiction  of  America. 

36.  Make  a  selection  of  the  most  interesting  entries  within  any  consecu- 
tive one  hundred  pages  of  the  Diary  of  Samuel  Pepys.  Also  of  the  dozen 
most  interesting  passages  in  the  Diary  of  John  Adams. 

37.  From  a  translation  into  modern  English  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle 
extract  all  the  passages  referring  to  the  characters  whom  Shakespeare  used 
in  the  tragedy  of  Macbeth. 

38.  Find  through  the  library  catalogue  the  books  containing  collections 
of  letters  of  well-known  English  literary  men  and  women.  Discuss  the 
value  of  the  letters  in  at  least  two  of  these  collections. 

39.  Contrast  the  spirit  of  Sir  Thomas  Malory's  treatment  of  old  Welsh 
legends  in  his  Morte  d* Arthur  with  that  of  Thomas  Love  Peacock  in  his  Mis- 
fortunes of  Elphin,  It  will  be  well  to  keep  in  mind  the  spirit  of  treatment 
in  Tennyson's  Idylls  of  the  King,  and  in  Goldsmith's  lines  beginning  "When 
good  King  Arthur  ruled  his  land."  Mark  Twain's  A  Connecticut  Yankee  at 
King  Arthur's  Court  should  also  be  read.  But  fix  the  attention  chiefly  upon 
Malory  and  Peacock. 

40.  Write  in  short-stgry  form  The  Testing  of  Sir  Gawayne  as  it  is  told  in 
Marguerite  Merington's  "Festival  Play"  under  that  title. 

41.  Add  to  the  list  of  Fairy  Stories  given  on  page  392,  until  you  have 
made  the  list  contain  at  least  twelve  in  number.  Which  is  the  best  of  the 
twelve,  and  why  ? 

42.  In  Sir  Walter  Scott's  The  Antiquary  find  the  "prose  idylls"  drawn 
from  the  lives  of  Scotch  fishers,  and  report  upon  their  descriptive  elements, 
their  songs,  and  the  lore  which  they  contain. 

43.  In  Henry  Morley's  Character  Writings  of  the  Seventeenth  Century 
read  a  few  of  the  "Characters"  by  Sir  Thomas  Overbury  and  by  Samuel 
Butler,  and  several  by  John  Earle.  Then  write  a  "Character"  after  the 
manner  of  those  authors. 

44.  Carefully  compare  the  leading  persons  in  George  Bernard  Shaw's 
Ccesar  and  Cleopatra  with  the  chief  persons  in  Shakespeare's  Julius  Casar 
and  his  Antony  and  Cleopatra. 

45.  After  careful  reading  of  John  Galsworthy's  drama  entitled  Strife, 
write  an  essay  in  which  you  state  and  explain  what  the  author  tries  most 
to  make  clear  and  what  appears  to  be  his  attitude  of  mind  toward  what  he 
is  depicting. 

46.  Compare  the  pictures  of  English  aristocracy  in  Meredith's  Diana  of 
the  Crossways,  Hardy's  Two  on  a  Tower,  and  Galsworthy's  The  Patrician. 


4o8  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

47.  Read  Jeffery  Farnol's  The  Honorable  Mr.  Tawnish.  What  charac- 
teristics of  the  life  of  eighteenth-century.England  are  presented  in  that  book  ? 

48.  Write  a  brief  history  of  the  short-story  from  1870  to  1895. 

49.  Find  the  differences  in  the  literature  of  different  regions  of  England, 
—  for  example,  that  of  London,  that  of  the  Lake  Country,  that  of  the 
Border  Counties  to  the  west,  also  of  those  to  the  north. 

50.  "The  highest  praise  of  a  book  is  that  it  sets  us  thinking,  but  surely 
the  next  highest  praise  is  that  it  ransoms  us  from  thought,"  said  James 
Russell  Lowell.  In  accordance  with  that  distinction,  classify  the  books 
which  you  have  read  within  the  past  year  and  a  half,  with  explanation  suffi- 
cient to  make  your  classification  give  the  impression  of  being  accurate. 


INDEX 


Abbot,  The,  227,  228 

Abou  Ben  Adhem,  233 

Abt  Vogler,  326,  327 

Adam  Bede,  263,  265,  266 

Addison,  Joseph,   5,   13,   134,   145,   160, 

161,  163-164,  167,  240 
Adonais,  214,  308,  382 
Advantages  of  Living  in  a  Garret,  166 
Adventures  of  Peregrine  Pickle,  178 
Adventures  of  Roderick  Random,  178 
Adventures  of  Tom  Sawyer,  18,  274 
yElfred,  10,  29 
JEliric,  10,  29,  30,  53 
jEneid,  355 
^schylus,  96 
A  Face,  326 

Affliction  of  Margaret,  201 
Afton  Water,  157 

Agamemnon  (Translation),  320,  328 
A  Health,  248 
Aids  to  Reflection,  238 
Ainger,  Canon,  311 
Alas  tor,  213 
Alchemist,  The,  11 1 
Alcuin,  10,  29 
Alden,  R.  M.,  3S2 

Aldrich,  Thomas  Bailey,  18,  275,  277 
Alexander's  Feast,  128,  135 
Alice  Fell,  198 
Alice-for-Short,  20 

Alice's  Adventures  in  Wonderland,  17,  267 
Alice  Through  the  Looking-Glass,  267 
All  for  Love,  13,  127 
Allen,  James  Lane,  21,  339,  342 
All's  WeU  that  Ends  Well,  81,  82,  89 
Alton  Locke,  268 
Amelia,  178 
American,  The,  275 
American  Historians,  256 
American  Literature,  2,  15,  18,  16,  21, 

183,  247,  256,  273,  277,  293,  299,  339, 

341 »  345,  349- 


American  Scholar,  The,  248 

American  Short-story,  277 

American  Taxation,  167 

Ambrosia,  or  The  Monk,  14 

Among  the  Corn-Rows,  21 

Amoretti,  62 

Amos  Barton,  276 

"Anacreontic"  poems,  62 

Ancient  Mariner,  The  Rime  of,  15,  189, 

192,  193 
Ancren  Riwle,  34 
Andrea  del  Sarto,  326 
Andreas,  28 
Analogy  of  Natural  and  Revealed  Religion, 

14,  181 
An  Apology  for  Idlers,  293 
Anatomy  of  Melancholy,  114 
Angel  in  the  House,  304 
Angles,  25 
Anglo-Indian  Literature,  2,  19,  347,  348- 

349 

Anglo-Saxon  and  Middle-English  Litera- 
ture, 23-47,  354 

Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,  10,  29,  31,  33,  46 

Anglo-Saxon  Literature,  3,  4,  10,  23-30 

Anglo-Saxons,  23,  39 

Anne  of  Geier stein,  229,  230,  231 

Antiquary,  The,  16 

Antony  and  Cleopatra,  81,  83,  loi,  104, 
127 

Apologia  pro  Vita  Sua,  288 

Apology  for  Actors,  75 

Appreciations,  290 

Arbuthnot,  Dr.,  173 

Arcadia,  12,  54,  59,  170 

Arcadian  Adventures  with  the  Idle  Rich,  341 

Archer,  William,  329 

Arden  of  Fevers  ham,  75,  82 

Areopagitica,  115,  118 

Ariosto,  II,  56 

Aristotle,  73,  93 

Arnold,  Sir  Edwin,  19,  348 


409 


4IO 


INDEX 


Arnold,  Matthew,  17,  117,  147,  201,  23Q, 
284-286,  290,  296,  297,  300,  305-309, 
331,  346,  382,  394,  396 

Arraigntneni  of  Paris,  The,  12,  76 

Ars  Poetica,  142 

Arthur  of  the  Round  Table,  29,  31,  45 

Art  of  Painting,  129 

Art  of  Poetry,  124 

Ascham,  Roger,  11,  68 

Asolando  :  Fancies  and  Facts,  320,  328 

A  Sonnet,  214 

Astrophel,  62 

Astrophel  and  Stella  Sonnets,  54 

As  You  Like  It,  80,  81,  82,  88 

Atalanta  in  Calydon,  18,  302,  308,  330 

Auerbach,  Berthold,  277 

Augustan  Literature,  164 

Aurora  Leigh,  304 

Austen,  Jane,  15,  181,  188,  225-227,  267 

Austin,  Alfred,  20,  346,  347 

Australian  Literature,  2,  19,  349 

Autobiography  (De  Quincey),  242 

Autobiography  (Franklin),  15,  183 

Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast-Table,  19,  234 

Autumn,  To,  224 

Ayenbite  of  Inwyt,  34 

Bachelor's  Complaint  of  the  Behavior  of 

Married  People,  238 
Bacon,  Essay  on,  280 
Bacon,  Francis,  5,  7,  11,  58,  73,  118,  131, 

134,  163,  165,  166,  238,  366 
Baeda,  10,  29 
Balder  Dead,  308 
Bale,  John,  11,  73,  74 
Ballad  of  Agincourt,  56 
Ballad  of  the  Dark  Ladie,  194 
Ballad  of  Trees  and  the  Master,  299 
Ballads,  6,  7,  32,  356,  380 
Ballads  and  Other  Poems,  318 
Ballads,  Old  English,  46 
Balzac,  Honors,  228 
Bancroft,  George,  18,  253,  256 
Banks  0'  Doon,  The,  157 
Bannockburn,  157 
Barbara  Frietchie,  345 
Barbour,  John,  10,  44 
Barchester  Towers,  18,  267 
Barker,  Granville,  20,  343 
Bamaby  Rudge,  260 
Barrack-Room  Ballads,  348 
Barrie,  James  M.,  20,  343 


Bartholomew  Fair,  m 

Battle  of  Maldon,  380 

Battle  of  the  Baltic,  233 

Battle  of  the  Books,  The,  165 

Baxter,  Richard,  12,  114 

Beattie,  James,  13,  151 

Beau  Brummel,  345 

Beauchamp's  Career,  271 

Beaumont,  Francis,  11,  no 

Beaux'  Stratagem,  The,  160 

Becket,  318,  330,  331 

Beckford,  William,  14,  181 

Beddoes,  Thomas  Lovell,  17,  296,  297 

Bee,  The,  165 

Beggar's  Opera,  The,  14,  160 

Beloved  Vagabond,  The,  20 

Ben  Hur,  19 

Bennett,  Arnold,  20,  52,  76,  338,  343 

Beowulf,  I,  10,  24,  25-28,  46 

Berenice,  247,  277 

Berkeley,  Bishop,  14,  181 

Betrothed,  The,  229,  230 

Bible,  II,  57,  69,  114,  118,  119,  120,  128, 

202,  290,  348 
Bible  in  Spain,  The,  17,  258 
Bibliographies,  107,  108,  137,  186,  251, 

335.  352,  358,  365,  366,  378,  385,  386, 

393,  397,  398 
Biglow  Papers,  The,  19 
Birrell,  Augustine,  196 
Black  Dwarf,  The,  227,  228 
Blackmore,  Richard  Doddridge,  17,  258, 

266 
Blackwood's  Magazine,  232 
Blair,  Robert,  14,  147 
Blake,  William,  14,  157-158 
Blank  Verse,  73 

Blessed  Damozel,  The,  18,  301-302 
Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon,  A,  320,  324,  330, 

331 
Boccaccio,  40,  41,  44,  57,  129 
Bockhurst,  Lord,  12,  57 
Boileau,  N.,  124,  125,  142 
Book  of  Martyrs,  57 
Book  of  Merlin,  The,  216 
Books,  Number  published  yearly,  336 
Borrow,  George,  17,  258 
Bostonians,  The,  275 
Boswell,  Essay  on,  281 
Boswell,  James,  14,  183,  244 
Bothic  of  Tober-na-V uolich,  17,  298 
Bottle  Imp,  The,  277 


INDEX 


411 


Boy^s  Town,  A,  275 

"Break,  Break,  Break,"  308,  310 

Bridal  of  Triermain,  The,  204 

Bride  of  Abydos,  The,  208,  227 

Bride  of  Lammermoor,  The,  228 

Bridge-Builders,  The,  341 

Bridge  of  Sighs,  The,  233 

Bridges,  Robert,  20,  346 

Britannia's  Pastorals,  12 

Broken  Heart,  The,  13,  iii 

Bronte,  Anne,  258 

Bronte,  Charlotte,  15,  181,  225,  257,  258, 

266 
Bronte,  Emily,  258 
Brooke,  Lord,  11,  56 
Brooke,  Rupert,  347 
Brooke,  Stopford,  201 
Brougham  Castle,  202 
Brown,  Charles  Brockden,  16,  247 
Brown,  Dr.  John,  17,  275,  276 
Browne,  Sir  Thomas,  12,  114,  118,  164, 

240 
Browne,  William,  12,  384 
Browning,  Mrs.  E.  B.,  17,  igg,  300,  304- 

305,  383 
Browning,  Robert,  17,  187,  271,  296,  300, 

305,  306,  309,  318,  319-331 
Brown  Passenger,  Our,  18 
Bruce,  The,  10,  44 
Brushwood  Boy,  The,  341 
Brut,  10,  31 

Bryant,  William  CuUen,  16,  247 
Buddha,  348 

Budgell,  Eustace,  14,  163 
Builder  of  Bridges,  The,  20 
Bunner,  Henry  Cuyler,  18,  275,  277 
Bunyan,  John,  5,  12,  34,  132-133,  170, 

171,  317 
Burden  of  Nineveh,  The,  301 
Burger,  Gottfried  August,  203 
Burroughs,  John,  21 
Bush  Ballads,  19 
Butler,  Bishop,  14,  181 
Butler,  Samuel,  12,  135 
Burke,  Edmund,  6,  14,  163,  166-168,  181, 

182,  183,  196 
Burney,  Frances,  14,  180,  181 
Burns,  Essay  on,  156 
Burns,  Life  of,  156 
Bums,  Robert,   14,   141,    156-157,    191, 

232,  234,  240,  381 
Burton,  Robert,  12,  114,  240 


Byron,  George  Gordon,  5,  15,  150,  188, 
189,  192,  194,  196,  203,  205,  206-210, 
211,  232,  245,  330,  381 

Cable,  George  Washington,  18,  275,  277, 

339 
Caedmon,  10,  28 
Caesar,  Julius,  23,  81,  83,  97 
Cain,  189,  208,  210,  330 
Cambridge  Thirty  Years  Ago,  294 
Campaign,  146 

Campbell,  Thomas,  15,  159,  207,  233,  318 
Canadian  Literature,  21,  349 
Candida,  20 

Canterbury  Pilgrims,  158 
Canterbury  Tales,  The,  10,  39,  41,  42,  45, 

46,  60 
Captain  Jinks  of  the  Horse  Marines,  345 
Captains  Courageous,  120,  338 
Cardenna,  82 
Carlyle,  Thomas,  17,  156,  163,  253-254, 

271,  281-284,  290,  308,  353 
Carman,  Bliss,  21,  349 
Caroline  Lyrists,  no,  113 
"Carroll,  Lewis,"  17,  258,  267 
Casa  Guidi  Windows,  304 
Caste,  18,  331 

Castle  Dangerous,  229,  230,  231 
Castle  of  Indolence,  The,  149 
Castle  of  Otranto,  The,  15,  180 
Castle  Rackrent,  16,  181,  254 
Cathleen  ni  Houlihan,  343 
Catiline,  in 
Cato,  160,  161 
"Cavalier  Tunes,"  324 
Caxton,  William,  10 
Celtic  Renaissance,  343 
Cenci,  The,  214,  215,  330 
Century  Dictionary,  The,  382 
Cervantes,  Miguel  de,  96,  164,  176,  177, 

179 
Chambers,  Robert,  15,  232 
Chambers,  William,  232 
Changeling,  The,  13 
Chapman,  George,  n,  56 
Character,  Essay  on,  294 
Characteristics      of      Men,       Manners, 

Opinions,  and  Times,  15 
Character  Writing,  112 
Characters  of  Shakespeare's  Plays,  239 
Characters  of  Virtues  and  Vices,  13 
Charge  of  the  Light  Brigade,  The,  56 


412 


Index 


Charlemagne,  29 

Chateaubriand,  Francois  Ren6,  150 

Chatham,  Essay  on,  281 

Chatterton,  Thomas,  14,  149,  223,  224 

Chaucer,  Geoffrey,  4,  10,  is,  36-44,  46, 
48,  60,  66,  73,  92,  103,  no,  129,  134, 
173,  187,  310,  319 

Cheke,  Sir  John,  11,  68 

Chesterton,  G.  K.,  267,  323 

Chesterfield,  Lord,  400 

Chevy  Chase,  32 

Childe  Harold,  207,  208,  209 

Child's  Garden  of  Verses,  A ,  293 

Child's  Grave  at  Florence,  A,  304 

Chinese  Letters,  165 

Christabel,  193,  194,  195,  204 

Christian  Prince,  The,  51 

Christmas-Eve  and  Easier  Day,  320,  325- 
326 

"Christopher  North,"  16,  232 

Chronicle  Plays,  82,  90 

Chronicles  of  Canongate,  230 

Chronicles  of  England,  Scotland,  and  Ire- 
land, II,  57 

Church  of  Brou,  The,  307 

Churchill,  Winston,  21,  339 

Cicero,  59 

Citizen  of  the  World,  The,  165 

City,  The,  345 

CivU  Government,  131 

Claribel,  311 

Clarissa  Harlowe,  175,  176 

Clarke,  Marcus  A.  H.,  19,  349 

Classicism,  141 
I        ._£lkmens,  Samuel  Langhorne,  1 8^274  3^^" 

Climbers,  The,  345 

Clive,  Essay  on,  281 

Cloister  and  the  Hearth,  18 

Closet-drama,  i6i 

Cloud,  The,  214,  216 

Clough,  Arthur  Hugh,  17,  296,  297,  298, 
308 

Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor,  4,  15,  127,  140, 
158,  188,  189,  192-197,  199,  203,  204, 
205,  212,  220,  224,  226,  232,  237,  238- 
239,  241,  245,  319,  330,  395 

Colet,  John,  11,  50,  51 

Colin  Clout's  Come  Home  Again,  61,  62 

Collected  Poems  (of  Rupert  Brooke),  347 

Collins,  Wilkie,  17,  258,  267,  275,  276 

Collins,  William,  14,  148-149 

Comedy,  360 


Comedy  of  Errors,  The,  81,  82,  86 

Comin'  through  the  Rye,  157 

Compensation,  Essay  on,  294 

Comus,  74,  76,  1x5,  117 

Concerning  the  Human  Understanding,  182 

Conciliation  with  the  American  Colonies, 
167 

Confessio  Amantis,  10,  36 

Confessions  of  an  English  Opium-Eater, 
242 

Congreve,  William,  14,  160 

Coningsby,  17,  257 

Connecticut  Yankee  at  King  Arthur's 
Court,  A,  45 

Conquest  of  Mexico,  The,  19 

Conrad,  Joseph,  20,  338-339,  34i 

Conscious  Lovers,  The,  15 

Conspiracy  of  Pontiac,  256 

Constant  Couple,  The,  160 

Constitutional  History  of  England,  The, 
235 

Cooper,  Anthony  Ashley.  {See  Shaftes- 
bury), 15 

Cooper,  James  Fenimore,  17,  204,  247, 
339 

Corinna,  113 

Coriolanus,  81,  83,  102,  234 

Corn,  299 

Corsair,  208 

Cotter's  Saturday  Night,  The,  14,  157 

Cowboy  and  the  Lady,  The,  345 

Cowley,  Abraham,  12,  134,  135 

Cowper,  William,  14,  151,  151-153,  195 

Coverdale,  Miles,  11,  52 

Count  Frontenac  and  New  France  under 
Louis  XIV,  256 

Count  Julian,  16,  204,  234 

Count  Robert  of  Paris,  229,  230,  231 

Cousin  Phyllis,  266 

Cranford,  17,  266 

Crashaw,  Richard,  13,  113 

Crawford,  Francis  Marion,  21,  339 

Crisis,  The,  21 

Crist,  10 

Critical  and  Historical  Essays  (Macau- 
lay's),  278 

Criticism,  6,  336,  394-398 

Criticism,  Definition  of,  5 

Cromwell,  Oliver,  109,  124,  126,  131 

Cromwell's  Letters  and  Speeches,  254 

Crossing  the  Bar,  310,  319 

Crotchet  Castle,  247 


INDEX 


413 


Crown  of  Wild  Olive,  292 
Crusades,  30,  49,  91 
Cymbeline,  80,  81,  83,  104 
Cynewulf,  10,  28,  30,  32 
Cynthia's  Revels,  iii 

Daffodils,  The,  201 

Daffodil  Fields,  347 

Daily  Bread,  347 

Daniel  Deronda,  263,  264,  266 

Danes,  39 

Dante,  36,  41,  66,  96,  164,  217,  233 

Dargan,  Mrs.  Olive  Tilford,  21,  345-346 

Darwin,  Charles  R.,  17,  252,  295-296,311 

Dauber,  The,  20,  347 

David  Balfour,  271 

David  Copperfield,  17,  258,  260,  402 

Davideis,  12 

de  Bourgogne,  Jean,  33 

"Decadent,"  iii 

Decay  of  Beggars  in  the  Metropolis,  The,  238 

Declaration  of  Independence,  15,  183 

Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
The,  14,  182,  235 

de  Coverley  Papers,  13,  163,  170 

Defence  of  Lucknow,  The,  318 

Defence  of  Poesy,  55,  73 

Defence  of  Poetry,  A,  218 

Defoe,  Daniel,  14,  138,  140, 145,  162,  164, 
170,  171-172,  177,  183 

Deirdre  of  the  Sorrows,  343 

de  la  Fayette,  Madame,  132 

D  eland,  Margaretta  Wade  Campbell,  21, 
339 

De  Morgan,  William,  20,  339 

Demosthenes,  168 

Denis  Duval,  261 

Dennis  H agger ty's  Wife,  276 

Departmental  Ditties,  348 

De  Quincey,  Thomas,  15,  167,  198,  232, 
235,  241-242,  279,  287 

De  Quincey,  Life  of,  242 

Descent  of  Man,  The,  296 

Description  of  the  Large,  Rich,  and  Beauti- 
ful Empire  of  Guiana,  The,  55 

Deserted  Village,  The,  151 

de  Vere,  Aubrey,  315 

Diary  of  John  Evelyn,  13 

Diary,  Pepys's,  13,  133-134 

Diana  of  the  Crossways,  271 

Dickens,  Charles,  17,  188,  258-261,  266, 
271,  275,  276,  338,  372 


Diderot,  Denis,  176 

Dirge  for  Wolfram,  The,  297 

Discourses  in  America,  285 

Discourses  on  Painting,  15 

Disraeli,  Benjamin,  17,  257  ' 

Dissertation  on  Roast  Pig,  238 

Divine  Emblems,  13 

Divine  Fire,  The,  20 

Doctor  Faustus,  12,  77 

Dodgson,  Charles  Lutwidge,  17,  258 

Dombey  and  Son,  260 

Don  Juan,  209 

Donne,  Dr.  John,  13,  56,  113,  125 

Don  Quixote,  177 

Dorset,  Sixth  Earl  of,  13,  135 

Dowden,  Edward,  197 

Dowel,  Dobet,  and  Dobest,  35 

Drake,  347 

Drama,  6,  7,  66,  329-331,  342-346,  353, 

354,  359-360  ^ 
Drama  in  America,  344-346 
Dramatic  Idylls,  320,  328 
Dramatic  Lyrics,  320,  324 
Dramatic  Romances,  320,  325 
Dramatis  Personce,  320,  326,  327 
Drayton,  Michael,  44 
Dreams,  21,  341 
Dream  Children;  a  Revery,  238 
Dream  of  Fair  Women,  /I,  311 
Dream  of  Gerontius,  The,  18,  288 
Dream-Pedlary,  17,  297 
Droeshout,  Martin,  79 
Drummond,  Henry,  182 
Drummond,   William   of  Hawthomden, 

II,  56 
Dryden,  John,  5,  no,  118,  123-130,  134, 

13s,  156,  160,  163,  164,  207,  394 
Duchess  of  Malfi,  The,  13,  in 
Du  Fresnoy,  Charles  Alphonse,  129 
Dumas,  Alexandre,  226 
Dunbar,  Paul  Laurence,  350 
Dunciad,  The,  144,  207 
Dying  Swan,  The,  311 


Earle,  John,  13,  112,  170 

Early  Nineteenth  Century  Literature,  3, 

5,  15,  187-251,  354 
Earthly  Paradise,  The,  18,  299 
Earth's  Enigmas,  21 
Earthworms,  296 
Easter-Day,  325 


414 


INDEX 


Ecclesiasfes,  q2 

Ecclesiastical  History,  lo,  29 

Echoes  from  the  Sabine  Farm,  21 

Edgar  Huntley,  16 

Edgeworth,  Maria,  16,  180,  181,  244,  275 

Edinburgh  Review,  16,  206,  210,  232,  242, 

254 
Edison,  Thomas,  252 
Edward  II,  75,  77 
Edward  III,  37,  82 
Edwards,  Jonathan,  15,  183 
Edwin  Drood,  260 
Effect  of  Natural  Objects,  202 
Egoist,  The,  18,  271,  272 
Eighteenth  Century  Literature,  3,  5,  14, 

138-186,  354 
Elegiac  Verse,  382 
Elegy,  381 
Ekgy  Written  in  a  Country  Churchyard, 

14,  148,  381 
Elements  of  Logic,  16,  241 
Elements  of  Rhetoric,  241 
Elene,  28 
Eliot,  George,  17,  181,  225,  258,  263,  266, 

275.  276,  330 
Elizabethans,  4 
Ellwood,  Thomas,  120 
Elsie  Venner,  274 
Emerson,   Ralph  Waldo,    19,   248,   294, 

297.  299,  382 
Emma,  226 

Empedocles  on  Etna,  307,  308 
Endymion,  219,  221,  222,  223 
English  Comic  Writers,  16 
English  Humorists  of  the  Eighteenth  Cen- 
tury, The,  263 
English  Idylls  and  Other  Poems,  312 
English  Language,  68 
English  Mail-Coach,  The,  242 
English  Verse,  382 
Englishman,  163 
Enoch  Arden,  3 i3i  317-318,  347 
Epic.  6,  7,  28,  353,  354-358 
Epigram,  383-384 
Epilogue,  329 

Epipsychidion,  214,  216,  217 
Epistle  to  Dr.  Arbuthnot,  144 
Epitaph,  383 
Epithalamion,  62 
Erasmus,  50,  51,  268 
Essay,  6.  7,  162-168,  235-245,  293-294, 

353.  366-369 


Essay  on  Dramatic  Poesy,  129 

Essay  on  Man,  144 

Essay  on  the  Human  Understanding,  13, 

131 
Essays  (Temple's),  13,  134 
Essays  in  Criticism,  17,  285,  346 
Essays  of  Elia,  16,  236 
Essays  on  Criticism,  143 
Ethan  Brand,  277 
Ethics  of  the  Dust,  The,  292 
Euphues  and  his  England,  12,  59,  170 
Euphues,  The  Anatomy  of  Wit,  59 
Euphuism,  59 
Euripides,  176 
Europeans,  The,  275 
Europe  During  the  Middle  Ages,  16 
Evan  Harrington,  271 
Evans,  Marian  {See  George  Eliot),  17,  263 
Evelina,  14,  181 
Evelyn,  John,  13,  133 
Evelyn  Hope,  323 
Eve  of  St.  Agnes,  The,  223 
Evergreen,  The,  145 
Everlasting  Mercy,  The,  347 
Everyman,  70 

Every  Man  Out  of  His  Humour,  in 
Excursion,  The,  155,  201,  218 
Exodus,  Paraphrase  of,  10  • 
Expedition  of  Humphrey  Clinker,  178,  179 
Ezekiel,  96,  212 

Fables  (Dryden's),  129 
Fable  of  the  Bees,  14,  146 
Faerie  Queen,  The,  61,  63-66,  214 
Fairy  Stories,  392 
Faithful  Shepherdess,  The,  in 
Faith-Healer,  The,  21 
Fairfax,  Edward,  11,  56 
Fair  Maid  of  Perth,  The,  229,  230,  231 
Fair  Maid  of  the  West,  The,  75 
Falles  of  Princes,  10,  44 
Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher,  The,  2/7 
Familiar  Studies  in  Men  and  Books,  293 
Farquhar,  George,  4,  160 
Fate  of  the  Butterfly,  61 
Fatima,  311 
Faust,  208 

Federalist  Papers,  15,  183 
Felix  Holt,  263,  265 
Field,  Eugene,  21,  350 
Fielding,   Henry,   5,   14,   170,   174,   i7St 
176-178,  179,  227,  231,  262,  338 


INDEX 


415 


Fifteenth  Century  Literature,  44 

Fingal,  150 

First  Quarrel,  The,  318 

Fitch,  Clyde,  344 

Fitzgerald,  Edward,  17,  296,  297, 311, 312 

"Five  Towns,"  338 

Flaming  Heart,  The,  13 

Fletcher,  John,  11,  no 

Florio,  John,  11,  56,  165 

Folk-Song,  380 

For  A'  That  and  A'  That,  157 

Ford,  John,  13,  no 

Foregone  Conclusion,  A,  274. 

Foresters,  The,  319,  330 

Forest  Lovers,  The,  339 

Forest  Sanctuary,  The,  16 

Forsaken  Merman,  The,  306 

For  the  Term  of  his  Natural  Life,  19 

Forth  Feasting,  11 

Fortunes  of  Nigel,  228,  229 

Fouque,  Friederich,  227 

Four  PP,  The,  n 

Fox,  Charles  James,  61 

Fox  and  the  Wolf,  The,  32 

Foxe,  John,  57 

Fra  Lippo  Lip  pi,  326 

France  :  An  Ode,  197 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  15,  58,'  168,  183 

Frederick  the  Great,  Essay  on,  281 

Freedom  of  the  Will,  15,  183 

Freeman,    Edward   Augustus,    17,    i8i 

253,  255 
Freeman,  Mrs.  Mary  E.  Wilkins,  21,  275, 

342 
French  Influence  in   English   literature 

during  the  Seventeenth  Century,  124- 

125 
French  Revolution,  The,  17,  52,  139,  146, 

167,  195-197,  204,  205,  253 
Friar  Bacon  and  Friar  Bungay,  1 1 
Frohman,  Charles,  344 
Froude,  James  Anthony, 1 7,  253,  255-256 
Fudge  Family  in  Paris,  The,  206 
Fuller,  Thomas,  13,  114,  240 
Fun  in  a  Green-Room,  344 

Galahad,  Sir,  312 
Galsworthy,  John,  20,  343 
Game-Keeper  at  Home,  The,  286 
Gardener's  Daughter,  The,  312 
Gardiner,  Samuel  R.,  211 
Garland,  Hamlin,  21,  342 


Gaskell,  Mrs.  Elizabeth,  17,  181,  258,  266 
Gawain  and  the  Green  Knight,  Sir,  10,  32, 

46 
Gay,  John,  14,  160 
Gebir,  234 

Genius  of  Hogarth,  237 
Gentle  Shepherd,  The,  15,  145 
Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  10,  31,  33 
Gertrude  of  Wyoming,  233 
Geste  de  Bretons,  1 1 
Giaour,  208 
Gibbon,  Edward,  14,  60,  182,  183,  235, 

254 
Gibson,  Wilfrid,  347 
Gilbert,  William  S.,  17,  331 
Gilder,  Richard  Watson,  21,  353 
Girl  with  the  Green  Eyes,  The,  345 
Gissing,  George,  20,  338 
Gladstone,  William  Ewart,  311 
Glove,  The,  325 
Go,  Lovely  Rose,  13 
Goblin  Market,  The,  18,  298 
Godwin,  William,  213 
Goethe,  Johann  Wolfgang  von,  39,  150, 

164,  174,  203,  208,  210,  213,  229,  365, 

306,  315 
Goetz  von  Berlichingen,  203 
Golden  Age,  The,  254 
Golden  Legend,  Translation  of,  10 
Golden  Rule,  51 
Golden  Violet,  The,  233 
Goldsmith,  Oliver,  14,  148,  151,  160,  165, 

166,  174,  246,  247 
Good^atured  Man,  The,  161 
Good-Sense,  Age  of,  123 
Good  Word  for  Winter,  A,  294 
Gorboduc,  12,  57,  72 
Gordon,  Adam  Lindsay,  19,  349 
Gospel  of  St.  John,  Translation,  29 
Gosse,  Edmund,  132 
Gould,  Gerald,  347 
Gower,  John,  10,  36,  38 
Grahame,  Kenneth,  254 
Grandissimes,  The,  18 
Grave,  The,  14,  147 

Gray,  Thomas,  14,  140,  147-148,  159,  381 
Great  Expectations,  260 
Great  Stone  Face,  The,  277 
Green,  John  Richard,  6,  17,  54,  253,  255 
Greene,  Richard,  11,  75,  76 
Gregory,  Lady  Augusta,  20,  343 
Greville,  Fulke,  n,  56 


4i6 


INDEX 


Griffith  Gaunt,  268 

Grote,  George,  18,  253,  254-255 

Growth  of  Love,  The,  20 

Grumbling  Hive,  or  The  Knaves  Turned 

Honest,  146 
Guardian,  163 
Guardian  Angel,  The,  224 
Guinevere,  317 
GulUver's  Travels,  15,  170 
Guy  Mannering,  227,  228 

Hakluyt,  Richard,  68 

Hale,  Edward  Everett,  19,  275,  277,  388 

Hale,  Edward  Everett,  Jr.,  142 

Half -Century  of  Conflict,  A,  256 

Hall,  Edward,  11,  72 

Hall,  Joseph,  13,  112 

Hallam,  A.  H.,  314 

Hallam,  Essay  on,  281 

Hallam,  Henry,  16,  234,  235 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  15,  185 

Hamlet,  12,  81,  83,  97,  98,  99,  129,  134, 

237,  360 
Harbours  of  England,  292 
Hard  Cash,  268 
Hard  Times,  260 
Hardy,  Alexandre,  102 
Hardy,  Thomas,  18,  258,  273,  347 
Harold,  318,  330 
Harrington,  Sir  John,  11,  56 
Harris,  Joel  Chandler,  21,  342 
Harrison,  Frederic,  261 
Harry  Richmond,  271 
Harte,  Francis  Bret,  19,  275,  277,  387 
Hastings,  Essay  oh,  281 
Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  19,  38,  154,  248, 

274,  27s,  277,  339 
Haydon,  Benjamin  R.,  218,  219 
Hazard  of  New  Fortunes,  A,  275 
Hazlitt,  William,  16,  218,  239 
Headlong  Hall,  247 
Heart  of  Midlothian,  The,  227,  228 
Heat  as  a  Mode  of  Motion,  18,  295 
Heine's  Grave,  308 
Hemans,  Mrs.  Felicia,  16,  233 
Henrietta,  The,  344 
Henry,  O.,  21,  342 
Henry  Esmond,  178,  231,  261 
Herbert,  George,  13,  113 
Heroes,  Hero-Worship,  and  the.  Heroic  in 

History,  On,  281,  282 
Heroism,  Essay  on,  294 


Her  Own  Way,  345 

Herrick,  Robert,  5,  13,  113 

Herrick,  Robert  (American),  339 

Hesperides,  The,  13 

Hewlett,  Maurice,  20,  339,  341 

Hey  wood,  John,  11,  71,  75 

Highland  Mary,  157 

Highland  Widow,  The,  229,  230 

Hind  and  the  Panther,  128 

Historians,  181 

Historic    Doubts    Relative    to    Napoleon 

Bonaparte,  241 
History,  9,  234-235 
History,  Essay  on,  294 
History  of  the  Conquest  of  Mexico,  256 
History  of  the  Conquest  of  Peru,  256 
History  of  England,  18 
History  of  England  from  the  Accession  of 

James  II,  254 
History  of  England  from  the  Fall  of  Wol- 

sey  to  the  Destruction  of  the  Spanish 

Armada,  17,  255 
History  of  the  English  People,  17,  255 
History  of  the  Formation  of  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States,  256 
History  of  Frederick  the  Great,  254 
History  of  the  French  Revolution,  253 
History  of  Great  Britain,  182 
History  of  Greece,  18,  255 
History  of  the  Jews,  235 
History  of  the  Kings  of  Britain,  10,  31,  3s 
History  of  Latin  Christianity,  16,  235 
History  of  the  Norman  Conquest,  255 
History  of  the  Reign  of  Charles  V,  15,  182 
History  of  the  Reign  of  Philip  II,  256 
History  of  the  United  Netherlatuis,  256 
History  of  the  United  States,  18,  256 
History  of  the  World,  1 2 
Hobbes,  Thomas,  13,  56,  131 
Hogarth,  William,  237 
Ilohenlituien,  233 
Holinshed,  Raphael,  11,  57,  72 
Hollow  Between  Three  Hills,  The,  277 
Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,   19,   248,   274, 

294,  297,  299,  311 
Holy  Grail,  The,  317 
Holy  Living  and  Dying,  13,  114 
Homer  (Chapman's  Translation),  11,  96, 

103 
Homer,  176,  355 
Hood,  Thomas,  16,  233 
Hooker,  Richard,  11,  57,  114,  118,  290 


INDEX 


417 


Horace,  124,  142 

Home,  Charles  F.,  370 

Hosea,  212 

Houghton,  Lordj  311 

Hound  of  Heaven,  The,  20 

Hours  of  Idleness,  206,  209 

House  and  the  Brain,  or  The  Haunted  and 

the  Haunters,  245 
House  of  Life,  The,  301 
House  of  Mirth,  The,  21 
House  of  the  Seven  Gables,  The,  274 
Hovey,  Richard,  21 
Howard,  Bronson,  344 
Howard,  Henry,  12,  53 
Howells,  William  Dean,  19,  274,  275 
How  the  Daughters  Come  Down  to  Dunoon, 

232 
How  the  Water  Comes  Down  at  Lodore,  232 
Huckleberry  Finn,  274 
Hudibras,  12,  135 
Hughes,  John,  14,  163 
Hughes,  Thomas,  18,  258,  266 
Hugo,  Victor,  95,  96,  164,  210,  226 
Human  Seasons,  The,  89 
Hume,  David,  6,  14,  181,  182,  191,  212 
Hunt,  James  Henry  Leigh,  16,  219,  220, 

221,  233,  240,  272 
Huxley,  Thomas  Henry,  6,  18,  252,  295, 

296 
Hygelac,  i 
Hymn,  381 

Hymn  to  Intellectual  Beauty,  214 
Hypatia,  18,  269 
Hyperion,  222,  223 

Ibsen,  Henrik,  90,  97,  343,  360 

Icelandic  Industries,  291 

Idea  of  a  University,  288 

Idler,  The,  166 

Idylls  of  the  King,  313,  317,  355 

Iliad,  103,  144,  355 

II  Penseroso,  115,  116 

Imaginary  Conversations,  240 

Imitative  Ballad,  381 

In  a  Gondola,  325 

Indian  Emperor,  The,  127 

Industries,  201 

In  Memoriam,  32,  308,  310,  313,  3i4~3iS. 

382 
In   Memory  of  Walter  Savage   Landor, 

382 
In  Praise  of  Chimney-Sweepers,  238 


Inquiry  Concerning  Human  Understand- 
ing, 14    ' 

Inquiry  into  the  Nature  of  the  Sublime  and 
the  Beautiful,  167 

Interludes,  70 

Intimations  of  Immortality,  Ode  on,  190, 
192,  381 

Iris,  20 

Irish  Bulls,  Essay  on,  244 

Irish  Melodies,  234 

Irish  Play-wrights,  343-344 

Iron  Woman,  The,  21 

Irving,  Washington,  17,  55,  247 

"Isaac  Bickerstaff,"  165 

Isabella;  or,  the  Pot  of  Basil,  222 

Isaiah,  212 

Isles  of  Greece,  The,  381 

Italy,  16,  233 

It's  Never  Too  Late  to  Mend,  268 

Ivanhoe,  227,  228,  229 

Ivan  Ivanovitch,  328 

James  I,  of  Scotland,  10,  45 

James,  Henry,  19,  181,  274,  275,  277 

James  Lee's  Wife,  327 

Jane  Eyre,  15,  257 

Jarrow,  29 

Jefferies,  Richard,  18,  286 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  183 

Jeffrey,  Francis,  16,  232,  242 

Jerusalem,  Translation,  11 

Jesuits  in  North  America,  The,  256 

Jew  of  Malta,  The,  77 

Joan  of  Arc,  15 

Job,  96 

John  Gilpin's  Ride,  151 

John  Inglesant,  18,  267 

Johnson,  Dr.  Samuel,  2,  7,  14,  89,  95,  140, 

147,  165-166,  167,  174,  181,  183,  236, 

366,  400 
Johnson,  Essay  on,  188,  242,  244 
Johnson,  Life  of  (Boswell's),  24*4 
Jolly  Beggars,  The,  157 
Jones,  Henry  Arthur,  20,  342,  343 
Jonson,  Ben,  12,  58,  68,  74,  no,  in,  117, 

170,  259,  384 
Joseph  Andrews,   The   History  of,    176- 

177 
JoumaUsm,  162-164,  232 
Journal  of  the  Plague  Year,  172 
Juliana,  28 
1  Julius  Caesar,  98,  323 


4iB 


INDEX 


Jumping  Frog  of  Calaveras  County,  The, 

277 
Jungle-Book,  The,  341 
Jusserand,  Jules,  169 
Jutes,  24,  28 
Juvenal,  96,  129,  147 
Juvenilia  (Tennyson's),  311  • 

Kant,  Immanuel,  138 

Keats,  John,  5,  16,  89,  119,  148,  188,  189, 

190,  192,  199,  206,  216,  218-225,  232, 

310,  314,  319.  383 
Kendall,  Henry  Clarence,  19,  349 
Kenilworth,  228,  229 
Kennedy,  Charles  Rann,  20 
Kersey 5  Dictionary,  149 
Kidnapped,  271 
King,  Edmund,  116 
King  Henry  /F,  81,  83,  88,  89,  95,  97 
King  Henry  V,  81,  83,  88,  96 
King  Henry  VI,  81,  82,  90,  97 
King  Henry  VIII,  50,  81,  83,  106 
King  Johan,  11,  73 
King  John,  81,  82,  91 
King  John,  The  Troublesome  Raigne  of,  74 
King  Lear,  81,  83,  98,  100,  104,  228,  237 
King  Richard  //,  81,  83,  9.2 
King  Richard  III,  81,  83,  91,  92 
King  of  the  Dark  Chamber,  The,  19,  349 
King  of  the  Golden  River,  The,  292 
King's  Quair,  The,  10,  45 
King  Solomon  of  Kentucky,  2 1 
King's  Threshold,  The,  20 
King's  Tragedy,  The,  301 
Kingsley,  Charles,  18,  258,  267-269 
Kingsley,  Henry,  18,  27s,  276,  349 
Kipling,  Rudyard,  2,  20,  338,  339,  341, 

347-348,  395 
Klein,  Charles,  346 
Knickerbocker  History  of  New  York,  55, 

247 
Knight,  Charles,  232 
Kubla  Khan,  192,  193 
Kyd,  Thomas,  12,  75,  76,  82 

La  Belle  Dame  Sans  Merci,  223,  224 
Lady  from  the  Sea,  The,  360 
Lady  of  the  Aroostook,  The,  275 
Lady  of  Lyons,  The,  330 
Lady  of  Shalott,  The,  3",  312 
Lculy  of  the  Lake,  The,  203,  204 
Lady  or  the  Tiger,  The,  19,  277 


L'Aiglon,  323 

Lalla  Rookh,  233 

L' Allegro,  115 

Lament,  A,  212 

Lamia,  223 

Lamb,  Charles,  16,  92,  158,  235-238,  239, 

402 
Lamb,  Mary,  236 
Lancelot  and  Elaine,  317 
Landon,  Letitia  E.,  16,  233 
Landor,  Walter  Savage,  4,  16,  116,  197, 

204,  205,  234,  240 
Langland,  William,  10,  32,  34,  35,  36,  38, 

92 
Lanier,  Sidney,  19,  297,  299 
La  Princess  de  Cleves,  133 
Lara,  208 

L'Art  Poetique,  142 
La  Salle  and  the  Discovery  of  tlie  Great 

West,  256 
Last  Days  of  Pompeii,  The,  16 
Last  Confession,  ^,301 
Last  Ledf,  The,  248 
Last  of  the  Barons,  The,  91,  244 
Last  Ride  Together,  The,  325 
Last  Tournament,  317 
Late  Massacre  in  Piedmont,  The,  383 
Laureates,  346 
Lavengro,  258 

Laws  of  Ecclesiastical  Polity,  1 1,  57,  1 14 
Layamon,  10,  31,  32 
Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel,  189,  203,  204 
Lay  Sermons,  Addresses,  and  Reviews,  296 
Lays  of  Ancient  Rome,  297 
Leacock,  Stephen,  21,  341 
Lead,  Kindly  Light,  288,  381 
Leather-Stocking  Tales,  247 
Leaves  from  an  Australian  Forest,  19 
Lectures  on  Art,  291 
Lectures  on  English  Poets,  239 
Lectures  on  the  Dramatic  Literature  of  the 

Reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  239 
Legend  of  Good  Women,  4 1 
Legend  of  Sleepy  Hollow,  The,  247 
Legend  of  Montrose,  The,  228 
Lenore,  Translation,  203 
Lessing,  Gotthold  Ephraim,  128 
Letters  on  a  Regicide  Peace,  167 
Letters  (Lamb's),  236 
Letters,  398-404 
Leviathan,  13,  131 
Lewis,  Matthew  Gregory,  14,  180,  245 


INDEX 


419 


Liberty,  284 

Life  and  Death  of  Jason,  The,  agg 

Life  and  Death  of  Mr.  Badman,  132 

Life  of  Byron,  16 

Life  of  David  Hume,  18,  2g6 

Life  of  Nelson,  16,  232 

Life  of  Samuel  Johnson,  LL.D.,  14,  183 

Life  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  16 

Life  of  the  Fields,  The,  18,  286 

Ligeia,  17,  277 

Light  of  Asia,  The,  ig,  348 

Light  of  the  World,  The,  348 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  311,  400 

Lines  on  the  Euganean  Hills,  214 

Lines  to  a  Waterfowl,  247 

Little  Minister,  The,  20 

Little  Novels  of  Italy,  341 

Lives  of  the  Poets,  166 

Lives  of  the  Saints,  10 

Livy,  102 

Lochiel,  233 

Locksley  Hall,  312,  313 

Locke,  John,  13,  56,  131-132,  igi,  212 

Locke,  W.  J.,  20,  33g 

Lockhart,  John  G.,  16,  156,  231,  232 

Lodge,  Thomas,  12,  75,  76 

Lodging  for  the  Night,  A,  276 

Logic,  System  of,  18 

London,  140,  147 

London  Magazine,  235 

Longfellow,  Henry  Wadsworth,  41,  44, 

297 
Looking-Glass  for  London,  76 
Lord  Jim,  20,  2>3)9 
Lord  of  the  Isles,  The,  203 
Lord  Ullin's  Daughter,  233 
Lords  and  Lovers,  345 
Lorna  Doone,  17,  266 
Lotus-Eaters,  The,  311 
Love,  ig2,  194 
Love  Among  the  Ruins,  324 
Love  and  Duty,  312 
Love  for  Love,  160 
Love  in  Idleness,  2g7 
Love  in  Old  Cloathes,  18 
Lover  Waxeth  Wiser,  The,  12 
Lover's  Complaint,  A ,  84 
Love's  Labour's  Lost,  sg,  81,  82,  85,  86 
Low  Tide  on  Grand  Pre,  21,  34g 
Lowell,  James  Russell,   ig,  36,  56,  100, 

218,  220,  294,  2g7,  2gg 
Lticifer,  20,  347 


Lucretius,  g6 

Luck  of  Roaring  Camp,  The,  277 

Luther,  Martin,  51 

Lyall,  Sir  Alfred,  ig,  348 

Lycidas,  115,  116,  308,  382 

Lydgate,  John,  10,  57 

Lyell,  Sir  Charles,  16,  234 

Lyly.  John.  12,  58,  sg,  75,  76,  170 

Lyric,  6,  8,  353,  379-386 

Lyric  Songs  and  Epigrams,  13 

Lyrical  Ballads,  141,  158-159,  192,  240 

Lytell  Gestes  of  Robin  Hood,  32 

Lytton,  Bulwer,  16,  91,  244,  275,  276,  330 

Macaulay,  Thomas  Babington,  6, 18,  188, 
207,  210,  234,  242-244,  253,  254,  255, 
278-281,  282,  284,  285,  290,  296,  297, 

353 
Macbeth,  81,  83,  g8,  loi,  237,  323 
Machiavelli,  51 

Machiavelli,  Essay  on,  188,  242,  243 
Mackaye,  Percy,  21 
Macready,  William  Charles,  323 
MacPherson,  James,  14,  150 
Madame  D'Arblay,  Essay  on,  281 
Madison,  James,  15,  183 
Madonna  of  the  Future,  The,  19 
Madonna  of  the  P each-Tree,  The,  20 
Madras  House,  The,  20 
Magna  Charta,  92 
Maid's  Tragedy,  The,  11 
Malory,  Sir  Thomas,  5,  10,  31,  46,  247 
Mandeville,  Bernard,  14,  146 
Manfred,  15,  i8g,  208,  210 
Manners,  Essay  on,  2g4 
Mansfield  Park,  226 
Manzoni,  Alessandro,  227 
Man  Without  a  Country,  The,  ig,  277,  388 
Man  with  the  Hoe,  The,  21 
Marble  Faun,  The,  274,  376-378 
Mariana,  311 
Mariana  in  the  South,' st^i 
Marius  the  Epicurean,  18 
Marjorie  Daw,  18,  277 

Markham,  Edwin,  21,  350    ^  rj  V" 

iTarMetm,  27'6 

Mark  Twain,  2,  18,  45,  274,  277,  341 
Marlowe,  Christopher,  12,  68,  71,  75,  76- 

78,86 
Marmion,  203 

Marryat,  Captain  Frederick,  16,  244 
Marshes  of  Glynn,  The,  299 


420 


INDEX 


Martin  Chuzzlewil,  260 

Marvell,  Andrew,  13,  135 

Masefield,  John,  20,  7g,  347 

Masque  of  the  Red  Death,  The,  277 

Masques,  74,  iii,  117 

Massacre  at  Paris,  The,  77 

Massinger,  Philip,  13,  no 

Masson,  David,  242 

Master  of  Ballantrae,  The,  271 

Mater  Dolorosa,  303 

Maud,  310,  313,  315-317 

"Maundeville,  Sir  John,"  2,5,  211 

May  Queen,  26,  311 

Mazzini,  Giuseppe,  293 

Measure  for  Measure,  81,  82,  83,  89 

Meh  Lady,  21 

Melting-Pot,  The,  20 

Memoirs  of  a  Cavalier,  170,  172 

Menachmi,  86 

Men  and  Women,  326 

Merchant  of  Venice,  The,  80,  81,  82,  87 

Meredith,  George,  18,  258,  271-272,  273 

Merope,  A  Tragedy,  308 

Merry  Men,  The,  276 

Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  The,  81,  82,  88 

Messiah,  The,  144 

"Metaphysical"  Poets,  113,  125 

Michael  and  his  Lost  Angel,  20 

Microcosmographie,  13 

Middle-English  Literature,  3,  4,  10,  11, 

30-47 
Middlemarch,  263,  265 
Middleton,  Thomas,  13,  no 
Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  A,  81,  82,  86 
Mill,  John  Stuart,  18,  284 
Mill  on  the  Floss,  The,  17,  263,  264,  265, 

266 
Milman,  Henry  Hart,  16,  234,  235 
Milton,  John,  5,  6,  13,  18,  38,  65,  74,  76, 

109,  no,  1 14-123,  130,  134,  168,  187, 

199,  298,  30s.  308,  310,  317.  319.  353, 

355.  382,  383 
Milton,  Essay  on,  188,  242,  279,  281 
Minister's  Charge,  The,  275 
Minister's  Wooing,  The,  274 
Minstrel,  The,  13,  151 
Minstrelsy  of  the  Scottish  Border,  203 
Miracle  Plays,  70 

Mirror  for  Magistrates,  The,  12,  44,  57 
Miscellany  of  Uncertain  Authors,  12 
Misfortunes  of  Arthur,  The,  73 
Misfortunes  of  Elphin,  The,  16,  246,  247 


Mr.  Isaacs,  21 

Mr.  Midshipman  Easy,  16,  244,  270 

Mrs.  Battle's  Opinions  on  Whist,  238 

Mixed  Essays,  285 

Modern  Instance,  A,  275 

Modern  Painters,  18,  291 

Moliere,  Jean  B.  P.,  239 

Moll  Flanders,  172,  177 

Monastery,  The,  228,  229 

Money,  330 

Monna  Innominata,  298 

Montaigne,  Michel  E.  de,  11,  56,  165,  366 

Mont  Blanc,  214 

Montcalm  and  Wolfe,  19,  256 

Moody,  William  Vaughan,  21,  346 

Moonstone,  The,  17,  267 

Moore,  George,  20,  338 

Moore,  Thomas,  16,  205,  232,  233-234 

Moral  Essays,  144 

Moralities,  70 

Morality -Tragedy,  69 

More,  Sir  Thomas,  12,  50,  51,  180 

Morley,  Henry,  146 

Morris,  William,  18,  296,  297,  298,  300, 

301 
Morrison,  Arthur,  20,  341 
Morte  d' Arthur,  10,  45,  312,  313 
Moth  and  the  Flame,  The,  345 
Mother  Hubberd's  Tale,  60,  61 
Mother's  Picture,  Lines  to,  151 
Motley,  John  Lothrop,  19,  253,  256 
Much  Ado  about  Nothing,  81,  82,  89 
Mummer's  Wife,  The,  20,  338 
Municipal  Report,  A,  21 
My  Heart's  in  the  Highlafids,  157 
My  Last  Duchess,  325 
My  Sister's  Sleep,  301 
Mysteries  of  Udolpho,  The,  14,  180 
Mystery  Plays,  70 

Nash,  Thomas,  12,  75,  76,  170 

Nathan  Hale,  34s 

Natural  History  of  Sdboume,  286 

Naturalism,  337 

Naturists,  338 

New  Decalogue,  The,  298 

New  England  Nun,  A,  21 

New  MachiavcUi,  The,  20 

New  Poems,  308 

New  Testament,  12,  35.  52 

New  Way  to  Pay  Old  Debts,  13 

Newcomes,  The,  262 


INDEX 


421 


Newman,  John  Henry,  18,  286-288,  290, 
381 

Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  13,  130.  252 

Nibelungenlied,  355 

Nicholas  Nickleby,  260 

Nightmare  Abbey i  245,  246,  247 

Nighi  Thoughts  on  Life,  Death,  and  Im- 
mortality, 15,  147 

Nineteenth  Century  Literature,  A  History 
of,  218 

Noctes  Ambrosiance,  16 

No  Name,  267 

Normans,  30,  31,  39 
-Norris,  Frank,  21,  339,  340 

North,  Sir  Thomas,  12,  56 

North  American  Review,  247 

Northanger  Abbey,  226 

North  Shore  Watch,  The,  21 

Norton,  Thomas,  12,  57,  73 

Novel,  6,  8,  168-181,  17s,  225-231,  244- 
247,  257-275,  337-340,  353,  370-378 

Novel  in  the  Time  of  Shakespeare,  The,  169 

yoves.  Alfred.  20.  76,  224.  .^47    •^gf:> 

Nut-Brown  Maid,  The,  44 

Oaten,  Edward  F.,  348 

Obermann  Once  More,  308 

Oblation,  The,  303 

O'Brien,  Fitz-James,  245 

Observations  on  the  Present  State  of  the 

Nation,  167 
0  Captain,  My  Captain,  19 
Ode,  381 

Ode  on  a  Grecian  Urn,  16,  189,  223,  224 
Ode  on  Intimations  of  Immortality  {See 

Intimations),  16 
Ode  on  the  Death  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington, 

281 
•  Ode  to  Duty,  202 
Ode  to  Evening,  14,  148 
Ode  to  Memory,  311 
Ode  to  Milton,  123 
Ode  to  a  Nightingale,  223 
Ode  to  the  West  Wind,  214,  216 
Odyssey,  144 
(Enone,  312 

Old  English  Language,  30 
Oft  in  the  Stilly  Night,  234 
Old  China,  238 
Old  Curiosity  Shop,  260 
Old  English  Scholars,  28-30 
Old  Ironsides,  248 


Old  Mortality,  227,  228,  229 

Old  Regime  in  Canada,  The,  256 

Old  Testament,  29,  35 

Old  Town  Folks,  274 

Oliver  Twist,  260 

Old  Swimmin'  Hole,  The,  21 

Old  Wives'  Tale,  The,  20,  76 

Omar  Khayyam,  17,  297 

On  a  Certain  Condescension  in  Foreigners, 

294 
On  a  Distant  Prospect  of  Eton  College, 

148 
On  First  Looking  into  Chapman's  Homer, 

56,  220 
On  Human  Learning,  1 1 
On  Style,  14 
One  Act  Plays,  364 
One  of  Our  Conquerors,  271 
Oration,  9 

Ordeal  of  Richard  Feverel,  The,  271,  272 
Oregon  Trail,  The,  256 
Origit^  of  Species,  The,  17,  295 
Orlando  Furioso,  Translation,  1 1 
Orm,  10,  34 

Ormond;  or  the  Secret  Witness,  247 
Ormulum,  10,  34 
Osorio,  330 
Ossian,  14,  150 
Othello,  81,  83,  98,  100 
Otway,  Thomas,  13,  161 
Our  Brown  Passenger,  276 
Our  Friend,  The  Charlatan,  20,  338 
Our  Ladies  of  Sorrow,  242 
Our  Mutual  Friend,  259,  260 
Outcasts  of  Poker  Flat,  The,  19,  277,  387 
Overbury,  Sir  Thomas,  13,  112,  170 
Oversoul,  The,  Essay  on,  294 
Ovid,  129 

Owl  and  the  Nightingale,  The,  32 
Oxford  Reformers,  50,  51 

Page,  Thomas  Nelson,  21,  339,  342 

Pageants,  74 

Paine,  Thomas,  15,  183 

Painter,  William,  12,  57 

Pair  of  Blue  Eyes,  A,  273 

Palace  of  Art,  311,  312 

Palace  of  Pleasure,  The,  12,  57 

Pahner,  George  H.,  85 

Pamela,  15,  175,  176 

Paolo  and  Francesca,  20 

Paracelsus,  320,  322,  323 


422 


INDEX 


Paradise  Lost,  13,  64,  115,  1 18-120,  121, 

122,  222,  317,  353,  355 
Paradise  of  Dainty  Devices,  56 
Paradise  Regained,  1 1 5,  1 20-1 2 1 
Parker,  Sir  Gilbert,  21,  341 
Parkman,  Francis,  19,  253,  256 
Parliament  oj  Fowls,  The,  41 
Passionate  Pilgrim,  The,  84 
Passions,  The,  148 
Past  and  Present,  281,  282 
Pastorals,  143 
Pater,  Walter,  18, 155, 178,  240,  261,  288- 

290 
Patmore,  Coventry,  304 
Patriot,  The,  325 
Pauline,  320,  322 

Peacock,  Thomas  Love,  16,  213,  245-247 
Pearl,  10,  32,  34 
Peele,  George,  12,  75,  76 
Peg  Woffington,  268 
Pembroke,  Lady,  384 
Pendennis,  262 
Pepacton,  21 
Pepys,  Samuel,  13,  134 
Percy,  Bishop,  14,  150,  202,  203 
Pere  Goriot,  228 

Pericles,  Prince  of  Tyre,  80,  81, 83, 103, 104 
Periodical  literature,  162-166 
Periods  of  English  Literature,  i,  3,  4,  354 
Per  kin  Warbeck,  75 
Persuasion,  226 
Petrarch,  41,  382 
Peveril  of  the  Peak,  228,  229 
Pheidippides,  328 
Phillips,  Stephen,  20 
Philosophy,  9,  131,  i8i 
Philosophy  of  Composition,  The,  387 
Philosophy  of  Style,  The,  295 
Phoenix  and  the  Turtle,  The,  84 
Phyllis  for  Shame,  13 
Pick-wick  Papers,  188,  258,  260,  372 
Pied  Piper  of  Hamelin,  The,  325 
Piers  Plowman,  10,  34,  35,  92 
Pilgrim's  Progress,  The,  12,  32,  34,  132, 

133.  170,  262,  317 
Pilot,  The,  247 

Pinero,  Sir  Arthur,  20,  342,  343 
Pinkney,  Edward  Coates,  248 
Pioneers  of  France  in  the  New  World,  256 
Pippa  Passes,  17,  320,  323 
Pirate,  The,  228,  229 
PU,  The,  21 


Pit  and  the  Pendulum,  The,  277 

Pitt,  Essay  on,  281 

Plain  Tales  from  the  Hills,  341 

Plato,  217 

Plautus,  86 

Playboy  of  the  Western  World,  343 

Plays,  in  the  United  States,  349-350 

Plays,  List  of,  363 

Pleasures  of  Hope,  159,  233 

Pleasures  of  Memory,  233 

Pliny,  59,  212 

Plutarch's  Lives,  Translation,  12,  56,  102 

Poe,  Edgar  Allan,  17,  147,  241,  247,  248, 

275,  277,  297,  299,  311,  387 
Poems  and  Ballads,  303 
^^ Poems,"  of  Shakespeare,  84,  97 
Poet  at  the  Breakfast-Table,  The,  274 
Poetics,  93 

Poetry  of  Architecture,  The,  291 
Poet's  Song,  The,  312 
Political  Economy,  284 
Political  History  of  the  Devil,  The,  183 
Pope,  Alexander,  5,   14,  140,   141,   142, 

143-145,  147,  150,  153,  159.  163,  164, 

181,  207,  306 
Porphyria' s  Lover,  325 
Porter,  Jane,  16,  244 
Porter,  William  Sidney,  21,  342 
Portrait  of  a  Lady,  The,  275 
Pot  of  Broth,  The,  343 
Potter's  Thumb,  The,  19,  348 
Prelude,  The,  201,  202 
Pre-Raphaelites,  298,  300,  301 
Prescott,  William  Hickling,  19,  253,  256 
Present-Day  Literature,  3,  5,  20,  336- 

352,  354 
Pride  and  Prejudice,  15,  226 
Prince,  The,  51 

Princess,  The,  310,  312,  313,  314 
Princess  Casamissima,  The,  275 
Principia,  13,  130 
Principles  of  Geology,  16,  234 
Principle's  of  Psychology,  295 
Principles  of  Sociology,  18 
Prisoner  of  ChUlon,  The,  208 
Progress  of  Romance,  175 
Prometheus  Unbound,  16,  189,  214,  216 
Pros  pice,  327 
Prothalamion,  62 
Punch,  291 
Purchas,  Samuel,  68 
Puritan  Movement,  109 


INDEX 


423 


Puritans,  57,  114,  117 
Purvey,  John,  11,  35 
Put  Yourself  in  his  Place,  268 
Pye,  Henry  James,  346,  347 
Pygmalion  and  Galatea,  17 

Quarles,  Francis,  13,  113 

Quarterly  Review,  232 

Queen  Mab,  213 

Queen  Mary,  318,  330 

Queen-Mother,  The,  302 

Quentin  Durward,  227,  228,  229 

Questions  and  Topics  for  Discussion,  22, 
45,  106,  136,  184,  242,  249,  33'i^-332, 
350-351,  3S8,  364-365,  369,  375-376, 
376-378,  384-385,  393-394 

Rab  and  his  Friends,  17,  276 

Rabbi  Ben  Ezra,  327 

Rabelais,  96,  239 

Radcliflfe,  Mrs.  Ann,  14,  180,  204,  245 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  12,  53,   55,  61,    65, 

118. 
Ralph  Roister  Doister,  12,  72 
Rambler,  166 
Ramsay,  Allan,  15,  145 
Ranke,  Essay  on,  281 
Rape  of  Lucrece,  The,  84 
Rape  of  the  Lock,  The,  14,  143,  314 
Rasselas,  14,  174 
Reade,  Charles,  18,  258,  267-269 
Reader,  163 
Reading  Lists,  46,  107, 136, 184-186,  249- 

250,  333-335,  351-352,  374-375 
Realists,  338 
Recessional,  The,  348 
Recollection,  214 

Recollections  of  the  Arabian  Nights,  311 
Recruiting  Officer,  The,  14,  160 
Red  Cotton  Night-Cap  Country,  or  Turf 

and  Towers,  320 
Redgauntlet,  229,  230 
Reeve,  Mrs.  Clara,  175,  257 
Reflections,  142 
Reflections  on  the  French  Revolution,  14, 

167,  183 
Reflective  Lyric,  381 
Reformation,  The,  51 
Religio  Laid,  128 
ReUgio  Medici,  12,  114 
Reliques  of  Ancient  English  Poetry,  14, 

150,  202,  203 


Remorse,  330 

Renaissance,  The,  11,  40,  48,  66,  69 

Renaissance  Literature,  3,  4,  48-108,  354 

Requiem,  270 

Requiescat,  307 

Resolution  and  Independence,  202 

Return  of  the  Native,  The,  18,  273 

Revenge,  The,  318 

Reverie,  328-329 

Review,  162 

Revolt  of  Islam,  214 

Reynolds,  Sir  Joshua,  15,  143,  237 

Rhoda  Fleming,  271 

Rice,  Cale  Young,  350 

Richardson,  Samuel,  15,   132,  xa,   170, 

174,  175-176,  330 
Riders  to  the  Sea,  20,  343 
Rienzi,  244 
Right  of  Way,  The,  21 
Rights  of  Man,  The,  15,  183 
Riley,  James  Whitcomb,  21,  350 
Ring  and  the  Book,  The,  320,  323,  327-328 
Rip  Van  Winkle,  17,  247 
Rise  of  the  Dutch  Republic,  The,  19,  256 
Rise  of  Silas  Lapham,  The,  19,  275 
Rival  Ladies,  The,  125 
Rivals,  The,  15,  161 
Rizpah,  318 

Robert  of  Gloucester,  ss 
Roberts,  Charles  G.  D.,  21,  349 
Robertson,  Thomas  W.,  18,  330 
Robertson,  William,  15,  166,  182 
Robin  Hood,  75 
Robin  Hood  Ballads,  44 
Robinson  Crusoe,  14,  170,  172 
Rob  Roy,  227,  228 
Rochester,  Earl  of,  13,  135 
Roderick  Random,  15 
Roderick,  the  Last  of  the  Goths,  ^04,  232 
Rogers,  Samuel,  16,  207,  233 
Rokeby,  203 
Romance,  189 
Romance  and  Reality,  t6 
Romance  of  the  Rose,  40 
Romances,  103,  356,  357 
Romances  of  Shakespeare,  83 
Romanticism,  153,  156,  190-192,  205 
Romanticists,  338-339 
Romans  in  Britain,  23,  25 
Romany  Rye,  The,  258 
Romeo  and  Juliet,  81,  97,  228 
Romola,  263-264 


424 


INDEX 


Rosalynd  :  A  Novd,  12 

Rose  Mary,  301 

Rossetti,  Christina  G.,  18,  296,  297,  300, 

304,  314.  383 
Rossetti,  Dante  Gabriel,   18,   199,   298, 

300,  301-302,  383 
Rostand,  Edmond,  323 
Rousseau,  Jean  Jacques,  179,  180 
Rowe,  Nicholas,  161 
Rowley  Poems,  14,  149 
Royal  Society  of  London,  130 
Rubaiyat  of  Omar  Khayyam,  297 
Rugby  Chapel,  308 
Ruskin,  John,  18,  36,  57,  114,  163,  194, 

260,  284,  290-293,  300,  308,  353 
Russell,  Lady  Rachel,  148 
Russian  Literature,  273,  277 

Sackville,  Thomas,  12,  57,  73 

Sacred  Poems,  13 

Sad  Shepherd,  The,  iii 

St.  Agnes*  Eve,  312 

St.  John,  96 

St.  Paul,  96 

St.  Ronan's  Well,  229 

Saintsbury,  George,  125,  168,  212,  218, 

242 
Saints'  Everlasting  Rest,  12,  114 
Samson  A  gonistes,  115,  1 21-12 2 
Sandra  Belloni,  271 
Sanity  of  True  Greatness,  238 
Saratoga,  344 

Sartor  Resartus,  281,  282,  283 
Satires  (Donne's),  13 
Satires  (Marvell's),  13 
Savile,  George,  238 
Saxons,  23,  25 
"Scandalous  Club,"  162 
Scarecrow,  The,  21 
Scarlet  Letter,  The,  19,  274,  275 
Scenes  of  Clerical  Life,  263 
Scherer,  Edmond,  263 
Schlegel,  Augustus  Wilhehn,  239 
Scholar  Gipsy,  The,  307 
School  for  Scandal,  161 
^School  of  Terror,  180 
Schopenhauer,  Arthur,  239,  273 
Schreiner,  Mrs.  Olive,  21,  341 
Science,  9,  130,  252,  295-296 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  16,  181,  188,  189,  190, 

192,  194,  202-204,  205,  210,  225,  232, 

226-231,  240,  247,  269,  290 


Scottish  Chiefs,  16,  244 

Sea  Fairies,  The,  311 

Seasons,  The,  15,  145,  149 

Self -Reliance,  Essay  on,  294 

Seneca,  73 

Sense  and  Sensibility,  226 

Sensitive  Plant,  The,  214 

Sentimental  Journey  through  France  and 

Italy,  A,  179,  180 
Separation,  308 
Servant  in  the  House,  The,  20 
Sesame  and  Lilies,  292 
Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture,  The,  291 
Seventeenth  Century  Literature,  3,  4,  14, 

109-137 
Shaftesbury,  Earl  of,  15,  181 
Shakespeare,  William,  4,  12,  38,  57,  59, 

62,  67,  69,  71,  73,  74,  78-106,  153,  156, 

162,  164,  165,  170,  179,  187,  199,  215, 

228,  234,  236,  237,  239,  259,  262,  272, 

304,  319.  321,  323,  359,  383 
Shakespeare  Once  More,  100 
Shakespeare's  successors,  1 10 
Shaw,  George  Bernard,  20,  342,  343 
Shelley,  Miss,  212 
Shelley,  Percy  Bysshe,  5,  16,  187,  188, 

190,  192,  196,  205,  211-217,  218,  232, 

234,  245,  246,  290,  298,  308,  310,  319, 

330,  382,  383 
Shenandoah,  344 
Shepherd,  The,  345 
Shepherd's  Calendar,  60 
Sheridan,  Richard,  15,  160,  161 
She  Stoops  to  Conquer,  161 
She  was  a  Phantom  of  Delight,  202 
Shirley,  258 

Shortest  Way  with  the  Dissenters,  162 
Shorthouse,  Joseph  Henry,  18,  254,  258, 

267 
Short  History  of  the  English  People,  A,  255 
Short-story,  6,  8,  275-278,  340-342,  353. 

386-394 
Sidney,  Sir  PhiHp,  12,  55,  59,  60,  65,  73, 

170,  384 
Signal  Man,  The,  276 
Sigurd  the  Volsung,  299 
Silas  Marner,  263,  265 
Silent  Woman,  The,  iii 
Sinclair,  May,  181,  339 
Sir  Charles  Grandison,  17s 
Sire  de  Maletroit's  Door,  The,  276« 
Siris,  14 


INDEX 


425 


Sir  Launcelot  and  Queen  Guinevere,  312 

Sir  Thomas  More  (A  Play),  75 

Sisterly  Scheme,  ^,277 

Sketch-Book,  247 

Sketches  by  Boz,  188 

Smith,  Adam,  15,  181,  182 

Smollett,  Tobias,  15,  175,  178-179,  259, 
262 

Snow-Bound,  19 

Sohrab  and  Rustum,  307,  309 

Soldiers  Three,  341 

Solitary  Reaper,  The,  202  , 

Songs  Before  Sunrise,  303 

Song  for  St.  Cecilia's  Day,  128 

Songs  of  Experience,  157,  158 

Songs  of  Innocence,  14,  157,  158 

Song  of  the  English,  A,  348 

Song  of  the  Shirt,  The,  16,  233 

Sonnet,  382-383 

Sonnets  from  the  Portuguese,  17,  304 

Sonnets  (Howard's),  12 

Sonnets,  of  Shakespeare,  84,  85 

Sophocles,  39 

Soul's  Tragedy,  A,  320,  325 

South  African  Literature,  2,  21,  341 

Southey,  Robert,  16,  158,  196,  197,  204, 
205,  213,  232,  234,  241,  346 

Southey,  Essay  on,  281 

Spanish  Friar,  The,  127 

Spanish  Gipsy,  The,  330 

Spanish  Tragedy,  12,  82 

Specimens  of  English  Dramatists  Con- 
temporary with  Shakespeare,  237 

Spectator,  14,  163 

Spectre  Bridegroom,  The,  247 

Spencer,  Herbert,  18,  295,  299 

Spenser,  Edmund,  4,  6,  10,  12,  38,  53, 
60-66,  68,  130,  213,  211 

Spinster,  163 

"Splendour  falls  on  castle  walls,  The," 
314 

Spy,  The,  17,  247 

Stanzas  from  the  Grande  Chartreuse,  308 

State  Papers  (Washington's),  15 

Stedman,  Edmund  Clarence,  244,  254 

Steele,  Mrs.  F.  A.,  19,  348 

Steele,  Sir  Richard,  15,  162,  163,  164,  166 

Stepping  Westward,  201 

Sterne,  Laurence,  15,  175,  179-180 

Stevenson,  Robert  Louis,  18,  258,  269- 
271,  272,  275,  276-277,  293  '•;  (  *  i,7r 

Stockton,  Frank  R.,  19,  275,  277     ' 


Stones  of  Venice,  291 

Stories  of  and  for  Children,  392 

Storm,  Theodor,  277 

Story  of  My  Heart,  The,  286 

Story  of  Rimini,  233 

Story -Telling  Poems,  357 

Stothard,  Thomas,  158 

Stowe,  Mrs.  Harriet  Beecher,  19,  274 

Strafford,  320,  323,  331 

Strange  Case  of  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde, 

276 
Stray  Pleasures,  202 

Strayed  Reveller  and  Other  Poems,  The,  306 
Strife,  20 

Stubbornness  of  Geraldine,  The,  345 
Studies  in  the  History  of  the  Renaissance, 

290 
Style,  List  of  Essays  upon,  398 
Style,  On,  14 

Subjection  of  Women,  The,  284 
Summary  View  of  Greek  Literature,  241 
Sun,  New  York,  336 
Superannuated  Man,  The,  238 
Surgeon's  Daughter,  The,  229,  230 
Surrey,  Earl  of,  12,  73 
Sutro,  Alfred,  20,  343 
"Sweet  and  low,"  314 
Swift,  Jonathan,  15,  160,  164-165,  166, 

167,  170,  173-174,  179 
Swinburne,  Algernon  Charles,    18,    199, 

296,  298,  300,  302-303,  308,  330,  382, 

383 
Sybil,  257 

Symonds,  John  Addington,  215 
Synge,  John  Millington,  20,  343 
Synthetic  Philosophy,  295 
System  of  Logic,  284 

Table  of  Authors,  10-21 

Tacitus,  27,  96 

Tagore,  Rabindranath,  19,  349 

Taine,  Hippolyte  Adolphe,  261,  279 

Tale  of  a  Tub,  The,  165 

Tale  of  Two  Cities,  A,  259,  260 

Tales,  356 

Tales  from  Shakespeare,  236 

Tales  of  a  Wayside  Inn,  41 

Tales  of  the  Mermaid  Inn,  20,  75,  224,  347 

Tales  of  Mean  Streets,  20,  341 

Tales  of  Unrest,  341 

Taliesin  :  A  Masque,  21 

Talisman,  The,  229,  23Q 


426 


INDEX 


Tamburlaine,  77 

Taming  of  the  Shrew,  The,  81,  82,  87 

Tarn  0'  Shunter,  157 

Task,  The,  14,  151,  152 

Tasso,  Translation,  11,  56 

Tatkr,  162,  165 

Taxation  no  Tyranny,  167 

Taylor,  Jeremy,  13,  114 

"Tears,  Idle  Tears,"  314 

Tea-Table,  The,  145 

Tempest,  The,  74,  80,  81,  82,  83,  104,  106, 

360 
Temple,  The,  13,  113 
Temple,  Sir  William,  13,  134 
Tennessee's  Partner,  277 
Tennyson,  6,  31,  44,  45,  53,   123,   187, 

203,  247,  296,  298,  300,  306,  308,  309- 

319,  320,  330,  331,  346,  355,  381,  382 
Terribly  Strange  Bed,  A,  276 
Tess  of  the  D'Urbervilles,  273 
Thackeray,  William  Makepeace,  6,  164, 

178,  231,  258,  261-263,  266,  271,  275, 

276,  338 
Thaddeus  of  Warsaw,  244 
Thanatopsis,  16,  247 
Theater,  The  Modem,  362 
Theatre,  163 

Their  Wedding  Journey,  275 
Theory  of  Light,  130 
They,  341 

Thomas,  Augustus,  346 
Thompson,  Francis,  20 
Thomson,  James,  15,  145,  148,  149,  159 
Thoreau,  Henry  David,  19,  286,  294 
Thoughts  on  the  Causes  of  the  Present 

Discontents,  167 
Threnody,  382 
Threnody,  382 
Thyrsis,  308,  382 

Timon  of  Athens,  80,  81,  83,  98,  103 
Tintern  Abbey,  Lines  Written  Above,  159 
Titus  Andronicus,  81,  97,  98,  103 
To  a  Sky-Lark,  200,  214,  216 
Tolstoi,  Leo,  98,  227 
To  Mary  in  Heaven,  157 
Tom  Brown  at  Oxford,  266 
Tom  Brown's  School-Days,  266 
Tom  Jones,  a  Foundling,  The  History  of, 

177.  178,  231,  262 
Topics  for  Advanced  Study,  404-408 
Tottel,  Richard,  12,  53 
TotieVs  Miscellany,  53,  56 


Toussaint  VOuverture,  198 

Toxophilus,  or  the  School  of  Shooting,  1 1 

Tractate  on  Education,  115,  118 

Tragedies  of  Shakespeare  (Lamb's),  237 

Tragedy,  72,  359 

Tragic  Comedians,  The,  271 

Travels  of  Sir  John  Mamideville,  33 

Treasure  Island,  18,  270,  271 

Treatise  of  Human  Nature,  182 

Trench,  Archbishop,  312 

Tristam  and  Iseult,  307 

Tristram  Shandy,  Gent.,  Life  and  Opinions 

of,  15,  179 
Triumph  of  Life,  The,  214,  216,  217 
Troilus  and  Cressida,  80,  81,  83,  103 
Troilus  and  Criseyde,  40 
TroUope,  Anthony,  18,  258,  267 
Troublesome  Raigne  of  King  John,  The,  74 
True-born  Englishman,  138,  140,  245 
Truth,  The,  34S 
Turner,  J.  M.  W.,  233    . 
Twa  Corbies,  32 
Twelfth  Night,  or  What  You  Will,  81,  82, 

89,97 
Twice-Told  Tales,  248 
Two  Drovers,  The,  229,  230 
Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,  The,  81,  82,  86 
Two  Noble  Kinsmen,  The,  11,  82 
Two  Voices,  The,  311 
Two  Worlds,  21 
Tyndale,  William,  12,  30,  52 
Tyndall,  John,  18,  295 
Types  of  Literature,  4,  5-9,  353-408 

Udall,  Nicholas,  12,  68,  72 
Ulysses,  312,  313 
Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  19,  274 
Uncle  Remus;   His  Songs  and  His  Say- 
ings, 21 
Unto  this  Last,  292 
Upon  Westmimter  Bridge,  200 
Utopia,  12,  51 

Vanity  Fair,  18,  261,  262 

Vanity  of  Human  Wishes,  The,  147 

Vathek,  History  of  the  Caliph,  14,  180 

Vaughan,  Henry,  13,  113 

Venice  Preserved,  13,  161 

Venus  and  Adonis,  84 

Verists,  338 

Verses  Written  in  India,  348 

Vestiges  of  Creation,  15 


INDEX 


427 


Vicar  of  Wakefield,  The,  14,  174 

Vice,  The,  71,  72 

Victorian  Age  in  Literature,  3,  5,  17, 
252-335,  355 

View  of  the  State  of  Europe  during  the 
Middle  Ages,  235 

View  of  the  State  of  Ireland,  dialogue- 
wise,  A,  63 

Villette,  258 

Virgil,  143,  144,  320,  355 

Virginian,  The,  21 

Virginians,  The,  261,  262 

Virginibus  Puerisque,  293 

Vision  of  Don  Roderick,  The,  204 

Vision  of  Judgment,  210 

Vision  of  Sin,  The,  312,  313 

Vittoria,  271 

Vol  pone  the  Fox,  12,  iii 

Voltaire,  Francois  Marie  Arouet,  245 

Voyage  of  Maeldune,  The,  318 

Vulgate,  10 

Wace,  II,  31 

Walden,  or  Life  in  the  Wood,  19,  294 

Wallace,  Alfred  Russell,  18,  295 

Wallenstein,  Translation,  192 

Waller,  Edmund,  13,  134 

Walpole,  Horace,  15,  180,  205,  245 

Wandering  Willie's  Tale,  230 

Ward,  Mrs.  Humphry,  20,  349 

Washington,  George,  15,  183 

Watson,  William,  20 

Wat  Tyler,  158 

Waverley,  203,  227,  228,  229 

Way  of  All  Flesh,  The,  135 

Way  of  the  World,  The,  14,  160 

Wealth  of  Nations,  The,  15,  162 

We  are  Seven,  159,  198 

Webster,  Daniel,  6 

Webster,  John,  13,  79,  no 

Week    on    the    Concord    and    Merrimac 

Rivers,  294 
Weir  of  Hermiston,  271 
Well  of  the  Saints,  The,  343 
Wells,  H.  G.,  20,  339 
Wesleyan  Movement,  151 
Westminster  A  bbey,  308  . 
Westminster  Bridge,  Upon,  2cx> 
Westward  Ho  I  26g 
Wharton,  Mrs.  Edith,  21,  339 
Whately,  Richard,  16,  241 
What  Was  It ;    A  Mystery,  245 


When  Ghost  Meets  Ghost,  339 

Whistler,  J.  M.,  290 

White,  Gilbert,  286 

White,  William  A.,  339 

White  Devil,  The,  in 

White  Doe  of  Rylstone,  The,  202 

White  Old  Maid,  The,  277 

Whitman,  Walt,  19,  297 

Whittier,  John  Greenleaf,  19,  297,  299 

Widow  in  the  Bye  Street,  347 

Widsith,  25 

Wieland;  or  The  Transformation,  247 

Wiggin,  Kate  Douglas,  339 

Will  0'  the  Mill,  276 

Will  Summer's  Testament,  12,  76 

Will  Waterproofs  Monologue,  312 

Wilmot,  John,  13 

Wilson,  John,  16,  232 

Wind  in  the  Willows,  255 

Windsor  Forest,  144 

Winter's  Tale,  The,  80,  81,  83,  105         >) 

Wister,  Owen,  21,  339  —  ^ 

Wit  and  Humour,  240 

Witch,  The,  in 

Without  Benefit  of  Clergy,  341 

Witty  Characters,  13 

Woman  in  White,  The,  267 

Women  Beware  Women,  in 

Wonderful  Century,  The,  18,  295 

Woodberry,  George  Edward,  21,  350 

Woodman,  The,  293 

Woodspiirge,  The,  301 

Woodstock,  229,  230 

Wordsworth,  Essay  on,  308 

Wordsworth,  William,  5,  10,  16,  141,  150, 
155,  158,  159,  168,  187,  188,  189,  190, 
191,  192,  193,  194,  196,  197-202,  203, 
205,  206,  210,  213,  218,  226,  232,  240, 
241,  273,  290,  292,  305,  306,  310,  319, 
346,  381,  383,  402 

Workhouse  Ward,  The,  20 

Worthies  of  England,  13,  114 

Wyatt,  Sir  Thomas  (Elder),  53 

Wyatt,  Sir  Thomas  (Younger),  12,  53,  73 

Wycliflfe,  John,  11,  30,  32,  35,  38 

Yeast,  268 

Yeats,  William  B.,  2,  20,  343 
Ye  Mariners  of  England,  15,  233 
Young,  Edward,  15,  147 

Zangwill,  Israel,  20 
Zapolya,  330 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America. 


'T^HE  following  pages  contain  advertisements  of  a 
few  of  the  Macmillan  books  on  kindred  subjects. 


MACMILLAN'S 

; POCKET 

CLASSICS 

SERIES 

Uniformly  25  cents  the  book 

This  well-known  Series  includes  over  150  volumes  suit- 
able for  classroom,  reading  circle  or  library. 

Edited  in  most  cases  by  teachers  experienced  in  teaching 
English  in  secondary  schools,  and  in  all  cases  by  people 
familiar  with  high  school  needs,  they  are  ideal  books  for 
the  high  school  course. 

Among  the  titles  in  the  Series  will  be  found  the  master- 
pieces of  the  language. 

The  text  of  each  classic  has  received  special  attention, 
and  the  editing  is  marked  by  sound  scholarship  and  judg- 
ment.    The  notes  are  suggestive  and  helpful. 

The  little  books  are  well  printed  on  good  paper ;  they 
are  firmly  bound  in  serviceable  brown  cloth ;  and  in  every 
sense  of  the  word  the  workmanship  of  the  Series  is 
excellent. 

The  price  is  right. 


THE   MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

64-66  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York 
BOSTON  CHICAGO  ATLANTA  DALLAS  SAN  FRANCISCO 


MACMILLAN'S  POCKET  CLASSICS  SERIES 

Addison's  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley.     (Gray.) 

Andersen's  Danish  Fairy  Tales  and  Legends.     (Brooks.) 

Arabian  Nights.     (Johnson.) 

Arnold's  Sohrab  and  Rustum  and  Other  Poems.    (Castleman.) 

Austen's  Pride  and  Prejudice.     (Heermans.) 

Austen's  Sense  and  Sensibility.     (Miller.) 

Bacon's  Essays.     (Clarke.) 

Baker's  Out  of  the  Northland.     (E.  K.  Baker.) 

Blackmore's  Lorna  Doone.     (Barbour.) 

Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson.    A  bridged.     (Watson.) 

Mrs.  Browning's  Poems.     Selections.     (Hersey.) 

Browning's  Shorter  Poems.     (F.  T.  Baker.) 

Bryant's  Thanatopsis,  Sella,  and  Other  Poems.     (Castleman.) 

Bulwer  Lytton's  Last  Days  of  Pompeii.     (Castleman.) 

Bunyan's  Pilgrim's  Progress.     (Moffatt.) 

Burke's  Speech  on  Conciliation  with  America.     (Newsom.) 

Burns's  Poems.     (Buck.) 

Byron's  Childe  Harold's  Pilgrimage.     (George.) 

Byron's  Shorter  Poems.     (Bowles.) 

Carlyle's  Essay  on  Burns.     (Gore.) 

Carlyle's  Heroes  and  Hero  Worship.     (Marble.) 

Carroll's  Alice  in  Wonderland.     (McMurry.) 

Chaucer's  Prologue.    The  Knight's  Tale ;  The  Nun's  Priest's  Tale.    (Ingra- 

ham.) 
Church's  The  Story  of  the  Iliad. 
Church's  The  Story  of  the  Odyssey. 

Coleridge's  The  Ancient  Mariner,  Kubla  Khan,  and  Christabel.     (Himtington.) 
Cooper's  Last  of  The  Mohicans.     (Wickes.) 
Cooper's  The  Deerslayer. 
Cooper's  The  Spy.     (Thurher.) 
Dana's  Two  Years  Before  the  Mast.     (Keyes.) 
Defoe's  Robinson  Crusoe.    Part  I.     (Gaston.) 

Defoe's  The  Life  and  Adventures  of  Robinson  Crusoe.    A  bridged.     (Johnson.) 
De  Quincey's  Confessions  of  an  English  Opium-Eater.     (Beatty.) 
De  Quincey's  Essays  :  Joan  of  Arc,  The  English  Mail  Coach,  and  The  Spanish 

Military  Nun.     (Newman.) 
Dickens's  Christmas  Carol.     (Sawin  and  Thomas.) 
Dickens's  David  Copperfield.    2  volumes.     (Fairley.) 
Dickens's  Tale  of  Two  Cities.     (Buehler  and  Mason.) 
Dryden's  Palamon  and  Arcite.     (Chubb.) 
Early  American  Orations,  1 760-1824.     (Heller.) 
Jonathan  Edwards's  Sermons.    Selections.    (Gardiner.) 
Eliot's  Silas  Marner.     (Gulick.) 
Eliot's  Mill  on  the  Floss.     (Ausherman.) 

Emerson's  Earlier  Poems.     (Gallagher.)  * 

Emerson's  Essays.     (Holmes.) 
Emerson's  Representative  Men.     (Buck.) 
English  Narrative  Poems.     (Fuess  and  Sanborn.) 
Epoch-Making  Papers  in  United  States  History.     (Brown.) 
Franklin's  Autobiography. 
Mrs.  Gaskell's  Cranford.     (Sampson.) 

Goldsmith's  The  Deserted  Village,  and  Other  Poems.     (VVhiteford.) 
Goldsmith's  Vicar  of  Wakefield.     (Boynton.) 
Gray's  Elegy  in  a  Country  Church-yard  and  Cowper's  John  Gilpin's  Ride. 

(Castlem:\n.) 
Grimm's  Fairy  Tales.     (Fassett.) 
Hale's  The  Man  Without  a  Country.     (Tucker.) 
Hawthorne's  Grandfather's  Chair.     (Kingsley.) 
Hawthorne's  House  of  the  Seven  Gables.    (Furst.) 


MACMILLAN'S  POCKET  CLASSICS  SERIES 

Hawthorne's  Mosses  from  an  Old  Manse.     (Burbank.) 

Hawthorne's  Tanglewood  Tales.     (Beggs.) 

Hawthorne's  Twice-Told  Tales.     (Gaston.) 

Hawthorne's  Wonder-Book.     (Wolfe.) 

Holmes's  Poems.    Selections.     (Castleman.) 

Holmes's  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table.     (Rounds.) 

Homer's  Iliad.     Lang,  Leaf,  and  Myers  Trans. 

Homer's  Iliad.     Pope  Trans.     Complete.     (Rhodes.) 

Homer's  Odyssey.    Butcher  and  Lang  Trans.     (Carpenter.) 

Homer's  Odyssey.     Pope  Trans.     Complete.     (Shumway.) 

Hughes's  Tom  Brown's  School  Days.     (Thomas.) 

Hugo's  Les  Miserables.     (Crawford.) 

Huxley's  Selected  Essays  and  Addresses.     (Buck.) 

Irving's  Alhambra.     (Hitchcock.) 

Irving's  Knickerbocker's  History  of  New  York.     (Greenlaw.) 

Irving's  Life  of  Goldsmith.     (Blakely.) 

Irving's  Sketch  Book. 

Irving's  Tales  of  a  Traveler.     (Chase.) 

Keary's  The  Heroes  of  Asgard.     (Morss.) 

Thomas  a  Kempis's  The  Imitation  of  Christ.     (Brother  Leo.) 

Kingsley's  The  Heroes,  or  Greek  Fairy  Tales.     (McMurry.) 

Lamb's  Essays  of  Elia.     (Robins.) 

Lamb's  Tales  from  Shakespeare.     (Ainger.) 

Letters  from  Many  Pens.     (Coult.) 

Selections  from  Lincoln's  Addresses.     (Chubb.) 

Selections  "from  Lockhart's  Life  of  Scott.     (Reid.) 

Longfellow's  Courtship  of  Miles  Standish.     (Lewis.) 

Longfellow's  Courtship  of  Miles  Standish,  and  Minor  Poems.     (Howe.) 

Longfellow's  Evangeline.     (Semple.) 

Longfellow's  The  Song  of  Hiawatha.     (Fleming.) 

Longfellow's  Tales  of  a  Wayside  Inn.     (Castleman.) 

Lowell's  The  Vision  of  Sir  Launfal.     (Bates.) 

Lowell's  Earlier  Essays.     (Hoffsten.) 

Macaulay's  Essay  on  Addison.     (French.) 

Macaulay's  Essay  on  Clive.     (Pearce.) 

Macaulay's  Essay  on  Milton.     (French.) 

Macaulay's  Essay  on  Warren  Hastings.     (Frick.) 

Macaulay's  Lays  of  Ancient  Rome,  and  Other  Poems.     (F.  T.  Baker.) 

Macaulay's  Life  of  Johnson.     (Schuyler.) 

Malory's  Morte  d'Arthur.     (Swiggett.) 

Memorable  Passages  from  the  Bible.    Authorized  Version.     (Scott.) 

Milton's  Comus,  Lycidas,  and  Other  Poems,  and  Matthew  Arnold's  Address 

on  Milton.     (Allen.) 
Milton's  Paradise  Lost,  Books  I  and  II.     (Crane.) 
Old  English  Ballads.     (Armes.) 
Old  Testament  Selections.     (Scott.) 
Palgrave's  Golden  Treasury  of  Songs  and  Lyrics. 
Parkman's  The  Oregon  Trail.     (Douglas.) 
Plutarch's  Lives  of  Caesar,  Brutus,  and  Antony.     (Brier.) 
Poe's  Poems.     (Kent.) 
Poe's  Tales.    Selections. 
Poems  Narrative  and  Lyrical.     (St.  John.) 
Pope's  Homer's  Iliad.     (Rhodes.) 
Pope's  Homer's  Odyssey.     (E.  S.  and  W.  Shumway.) 
Pope's  Rape  of  the  Lock.     (King.) 
Christina  Rossetti's  Poems.     Selections.     (Burke.) 
Ruskin's  Crown  of  Wild  Olive,  and  Queen  of  the  Air.     (Melton.) 
Ruskin's  Sesame  and  Lilies ;  and  The  King  of  the  Golden  River.     (Bates.) 
Scott's  Ivanhoe.     (Hitchcock.) 


MACMILLAN'S  POCKET  CLASSICS  SERIES 


Scott's  Kenilworth.     (Castleraan.) 

Scott's  Lady  of  the  Lake.     (Packaid.) 

Scott's  Lay  of  the  Last  MinstreL     (Bowles.) 

Scott's  Marmion.     (Aiton.) 

Scott's  Quentin  Durward.     (Eno.) 

Scott's  Talisman.     (Treudley.) 

Select  Orations.     (Hall.) 

Selected  Poems  for  Required  Reading  in  Secondary  Schools.     (Boynton.) 

Selections  for  Oral  Reading.     (Fuess.) 

Selections  from  American  Poetry.     (Carhart.) 

Shakespeare's  As  You  Like  It.     (Gaston.) 

Shakespeare's  Hamlet.     (Sherman.) 

Shakespeare's  King  Henry  V.     (Bowles.) 

Shakespeare's  Julius  Caesar.     (G.  W.  and  L.  G.  HuflEord.) 

Shakespeare's  King  Richard  IL     (Moffat.) 

Shakespeare's  King  Richard  III.     (Brubacher.) 

Shakespeare's  King  Lear.     (Buck.) 

Shakespeare's  Macbeth.     (French.) 

Shakespeare's  Merchant  of  Venice.     (Underwood.) 

Shakespeare's  Midsummer-Night's  Dream.     (Noyes.) 

Shakespeare's  The  Tempest.     (Newsom.) 

Shakespeare's  Twelfth  Night.     (Morton.) 

Shelley  and  Keats.     Selections.     (Newsom.) 

Sheridan's  The  Rivals,  and  The  School  for  Scandal.     (Howe.) 

Short  Stories :  A  Collection.     (Pittenger.) 

Short  Stories  and  Selections.     (Baker.) 

Representative  Short  Stories.     (Hart  and  Perry.) 

Southern  Orators.     (McConnell.) 

Southern  Poets.    Selections.     (Weber.) 

Southey's  Life  of  Nelson.     (Law.) 

Spenser's  Faerie  Queene,  Book  I.     (Wauchope.) 

Stevenson's  Kidnapped.     (Brown.) 

Stevenson's  Master  of  Ballantrae.     (White.) 

Stevenson's  Travels  with  a  Donkey,  and  An  Inland  Voyage.     (Cross.) 

Stevenson's  Treasure  Island.     (Vance.) 

Swift's  Gulliver's  Travels.     Qohnson.) 

Tennyson's  Idylls  of  the  King.     (French.) 

Tennyson's  In  Memoriam.     (Pearce.) 

Tennyson's  Princess.     (Farrand.) 

Tennyson's  Shorter  Poems.     (Nutter.) 

Thackeray's  English  Humourists.     (Castleman.) 

Thackeray's  Henry  Esmond.     (Henneman.) 

Thoreau's  Walden.     (Rccs.) 

The  Aeneid  of  Virgil.     ConinRton  Trans.     (Shumway.) 

Selections  from  Trevelyan's  Life  of  Macaulay.     (Barley.) 

Washington's  Farewell  Address,  and  Webster's  Bunker  Hill  Orations.     (Peck.) 

Whittier's  Snow-Bound,  and  other  Poems.     (Bouton.) 

John  Woolman's  Journal. 

Wordsworth's  Shorter  Poems.     (Fulton.) 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

64-66  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York  City 

CHICAGO  SAN  FRANCISCO  ATLANTA 

BOSTON  SEATTLE  DALLAS 


m  36983 


541:192 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


